Patek Philippe’s 5978P Steals Milan Spotlight
Patek Philippe’s Watch Art Grand Exhibition has just opened in Milan, three years after its last residency in Tokyo. The regular exhibit pops up in a new city every few years, and serves as a local demonstration of the brand’s prowess across complications and métiers d’art. For the Milan edition, the flagship new release is the Perpetual Calendar Chronograph ref. 5978P-010, which combines the instantaneous perpetual calendar system from the ref. 5207 with the brand’s manually wound cal. CH 29-535 chronograph movement. Visually, this combination of elements resembles the more upscale ref. 5208, but without the minute repeater functionality. Debuting in platinum, the blue-and-red ref. 5978P is limited to 120 pieces, but additional (non-limited) variants seem likely at some point in the future. Initial thoughts Patek Philippe was the first brand to combine the perpetual calendar and chronograph complications in a wristwatch. This breakthrough came surprisingly early in the history of the wristwatch — the fabled ref. 1518 debuted all the way back in 1941. Since then, this format has become almost synonymous with the brand. The ref. 5978P builds upon this legacy without retreading the same territory. For one thing, the watch eschews the familiar triple calendar dial layout of the refs. 1518, 2499, 3970, 5970, 5270, and their cushion-shaped and split-seconds variants. Instead, the dial adopts the layout of the ref. 5208, characterised by three calendar windows across...