Parmigiani Fleurier recently released a preview of one of its four new Tonda Métro timepieces, which the brand will officially launch in Geneva this January, at the 2016 Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH).
The launch of the new collection will showcase the work of a talented photographer that the Parmigiani manufacture worked with and will feature four cities around the globe, each representing a different Tonda Métro model. Chicago is the first city chosen, and will represent the new Parmigiani Tonda Métrographe Abyss Blue (shown). Three more yet-to-be-announced models will follow.
The Parmigiani Tonda Métrographe Abyss Blue features a distinctive, blue-colored dial, which requires the careful skill of the brand’s master dial maker to create.
To create this special shade of blue is no easy task. First, the dial maker dips the dial in a special electroplating bath, which has a specific current running through it, at a perfectly controlled temperature. Then, with a steady hand, she artfully moves it as she has learned over many years of experience. The electrolysis causes the color to be transformed from a bright orange shade that turns into a rust-colored brown; next, deep, striking purplish tones appear; finally, waves of blue-violet hue materialize, resulting ultimately in the hue Parmigiani refers to as Abyss blue. The dial maker then locks in this color by quickly removing the support that holds the dial. (Two or three seconds more in this bath and the color would have turned to royal blue, then gray, resulting in the dial being ruined.
The blue dial has rhodium-plated, applied indices with luminescent coating, and a snailed exterior ring with an opaline center. The Delta-shaped hands also have a luminescent coating.
Inside the watch is a 4-Hz automatic movement (Caliber PF315, above) which has been developed and produced in-house. It has 351 components, including 46 jewels; two series-coupled barrels; côtes de Genève finishing; bevelled bridges; and a 42-hour power reserve. Functions include hours, minutes, small seconds at 3 o’clock, date indication, and a 1/4-second chronograph with a large seconds hand and 30-minute and 12-hour counters.
A fully polished, stainless steel case, measuring 40 mm in diameter and 11.7 mm in thickness, houses the chronograph movement. It has a clear sapphire caseback and an individual number engraved on the caseback of each piece. Water-resistance is 30 meters.
The Parmigiani Tonda Métrographe Abyss Blue comes in two variations: on a blue Hermès leather strap for CHF 11,900 and on a titanium/steel bracelet (polished and satin-finished), for CHF 12,500. Parmigiani says the watch will be available in the first quarter of 2016.
