How the Patek Philippe Cubitus Polarized the Watch World—and Won
Welcome to Dialed In, Esquire’s column bringing you horological happenings and the most essential news from the watch world.
Last month, Patek Philippe, the watchmaker’s watchmaker, did the unimaginable. It launched a new watch, the Cubitus. You might think, Well, that’s what watch brands are supposed to do, right? But Patek Philippe tends to plough its own furrow, content to release complications and elaborations of tried and tested families of watches. The last major design from the maker arrived in 1999, a full 25 years ago. That was the rectangular Twenty-4, the first ever Patek Philippe aimed squarely at women. The Aquanaut, a men’s design, debuted two years prior, in 1997. At the time, it was just as polarizing at the Cubitus is now—as was the Nautilus when it hit the scene in the ‘70s.
But in the modern connected world, the Cubitus created—in what felt like a nanosecond—more than its fair share of collective consternation. It was as if Led Zeppelin had released a late hip-hop album. Pearl clutching ensued.
A lot was made of the passing resemblance to the Nautilus, the house’s groundbreaking and unexpected modernist left turn that emerged in 1976. Certainly, many features of the Cubitus are reminiscent of the Nautilus, from the horizontal grooved dial treatment to the case and the virtuoso combination of polished and brushed surfaces that (eventually) made the Nautilus such a hit.
Had the Cubitus borne no visual relation whatever to its famous predecessor, would that have been less jarring to watch fans? If you had a child and that child grew up to look uncannily like the next-door neighbor instead of you, you might well have a searching question or two. It’s reassuring, therefore, that there’s a strong family resemblance. It makes the Cubitus, you might say, a Prince William rather than a Harry, and the heir to a long line of sporty dress watches stretching back nearly half a century.
All the same, the Cubitus is in many ways a very different watch from its forebears. First is the scale, something that’s not really apparent until you slide it on your wrist. It measures a sizable (for Patek Philippe) 45mm, the dimension measured diagonally across the face of the watch. But at only 8.3mm thick (in the steel versions), this is also a pretty flat watch, and its lightness on the wrist more than makes up for its width.
There are just three models in the line. The first two—a steel three-hander with a date window and deep green dial, a similarly uncomplicated version in steel and gold with a blue dial—come on integrated steel bracelets. The third, in a platinum case with a composite strap, offers instantaneous jumps of the date, day, and moon phases, with the latter two sharing a sub-dial next to a smaller seconds sub dial.
Although all three watches have plenty to talk about, the green dial steel version in particular is our favorite. It’s a rich hue—almost black at some angles. Even in direct light it’s deep, cold, and slatey. It’s a refreshing departure from trendier takes on the color.
As a paragon of watchmaking taste, Patek Philippe is, of course, damned if it does, damned if it doesn’t. But that was never a solid reason to do nothing. The Cubitus’s polarizing form represents—at least in the steel versions—a bold play for new, “entry-level” customers. Introducing new designs that may unsettle some (for a time) is the only surefire way to propagate a new generation of watch collectors just as doolally for Patek Philippe as their fathers before them.
To us, that’s the point. This is a watch for the future customers of Patek Philippe. For the rest of us, well, there’s never any harm in having one’s certainties rearranged from time to time.
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