Last month, HODINKEE caught up with Patek Philippe’s Thierry Stern, who talked to us remotely from Geneva about where Patek has been, where it is now, and where it’s going in the future.
I think we should remember it was the first high-end watch made of steel that’s why it has such a strong, how do I say it, maternity.
You can see that with the DB5 from Aston Martin; it will always be beautiful.
Can you imagine? Am I going to fight against Apple, which has nearly the same budget as I do in R&D, except they have five more zeros at the end of it? I can’t compete with that.
Well, for me, it was more of a way to say thank you to all of you who have been supporting us with the Nautilus.
We had about five different colors, and this one was very nice with the steel, that’s how I decided.
You can wear it with jeans, when you go to the pool, or with a beautiful tuxedo.
I have to take the best of the traditional and the future and see if they match to make a beautiful watch.
Do you want to have a high-end watch with a good case, or maybe a fashion watch that you can sell like crazy for one year? This is not ideal.
Some others are more crazy freaks who know everything; they know the quality of the movement, the design of every part is something quite unique.
So yes, you do have to come back to that and we will as soon as possible.
As you can imagine it is not easy to do, all of us together … but we are all keen to do it.
When I was a kid, I was with all those guys from Vacheron, Piaget, Chopard, they were all friends, having dinner on Sundays.
I don’t have chips, or quartz … okay, we have a quartz movement, but we are working mostly with something mechanical, that we can disassemble.
I’m making something nice for people to wear: A souvenir of a birthday, a wedding, graduation.