Calatrava World time, Flyback Chronograph - 5935a

Description

The Patek Philippe World Time Flyback Chronograph ref. 5935A-001 is one of the most remarkable and audacious watches the Geneva manufacture has produced in the modern era — a stainless steel realisation of two of the most emblematic Patek Philippe complications, combined in a 41mm case and presented with a rose-gilt opaline salmon dial of extraordinary character.

Introduced at Watches and Wonders 2022, the 5935A is historically significant as the first execution of the World Time Flyback Chronograph in steel — a material that Patek Philippe reserves for only its most exceptional complicated references outside the Nautilus and Aquanaut, and whose rarity in this context immediately places the 5935A in a category of its own. The rose-gilt opaline dial is the centrepiece of the entire proposition: a warm, salmon-toned surface divided into two distinct visual registers.

 At the centre, a "carbon" motif — a hand-stamped geometric pattern first used on the ref. 6007A produced to commemorate Patek Philippe's new manufacture building — gives the watch an unmistakably contemporary, almost architectural character that sits in deliberate tension with the watch's otherwise classical Calatrava DNA.

Surrounding this, the world time display arranges 24 city names on a rotating disc, with an inner 24-hour scale — white numerals on a black background for night, black numerals on white for day — allowing the time in all 24 international time zones to be read simultaneously at a glance. The charcoal grey white gold faceted dauphine hands and applied baton-style hour markers, all filled with white luminescent coating, ensure that legibility is never sacrificed to complexity. The flyback chronograph adds a further dimension: a central chronograph hand complemented by a finely snailed instantaneous 30-minute counter at 6 o'clock, with the flyback function allowing instantaneous reset and restart of a new timing operation while the chronograph is already running — a complication of genuine practical value for anyone who times consecutive intervals. The World Time complication is controlled by a single pusher at 10 o'clock, which advances all displays simultaneously by one time zone with each press — a solution of elegant simplicity for what is mechanically a remarkably complex function.

The entirely polished 41mm stainless steel case features chronograph pushers at 2 and 4 o'clock and a screw-in crown embossed with the Calatrava cross, with water resistance to 30 metres. The sapphire exhibition case back reveals the Calibre CH 28-520 HU in full: 343 components, 38 jewels, a 21ct gold rotor finished with Geneva stripes and perlage at the centre, a Gyromax balance wheel, Spiromax silicon hairspring, and column-wheel vertical-clutch chronograph mechanism — the complete expression of Patek Philippe's manufacture capability. The watch ships with two hand-stitched calfskin straps — one grained taupe, one beige with nubuck finish — each secured by a polished steel fold-over clasp with the Calatrava cross.

Specifications: