An outstanding piece of contemporary haute horlogerie, featuring one of watchmaking’s most enduring and practical complications, the PF Tonda Annual Calendar by Swiss independent manufacture Parmigiani Fleurier is a distinguished and sophisticated wristwatch, presented in a case of stainless steel on an integrated link bracelet, and powered by a superb in-house movement with a complex retrograde twist.

With its origins going back to the mid-1990s, when master watchmaker Michel Parmigiani first established the company in his own name, the Parmigiani Fleurier masion can very much be considered as one of the pioneering names in the landscape of independent watchmaking today. With classic, rather than fashionable designs, paired with beautiful in house mechanisms and uncompromising hand finishing, it is a marque whose watches transcend passing trends, with their refined yet distinctive styling perfectly suited for the gravitas of the boardroom and bespoke tailoring, or as an expression of individuality and taste on society occasions.

A recent addition to the brand’s GPHG award-winning Tonda Collection, the PF Annual Calendar is a magnificent piece which marks the beginning of a new era for the brand, with its branding reduced to a minimalist PF motif just beneath the twelve index on the dial. In every other detail however, the traditional watchmaking values and exacting standards of a perfectionist artisan remain fully intact. It is a complex watch too, with a retrograde date

Encased in stainless steel, the new PF Tonda Annual Calendar measures 42mm across and 11.1mm in height. It is finished with contrasting satin-brushed and polished surfaces, and features the PF signature fluted bezel in 950 platinum, with elegantly sculpted lugs into which the stainless steel link bracelet is integrated into the overall design.

Beneath the subtle curvature of the sapphire crystal, the dial is dark grey, and decorated with a Grain d’Orge guilloché pattern. Skeletonised steel Delta hour and minute hands complement the applied hour markers, seconds hand and the crescent tip of the pointer date indicator, which has a retrograde action, as the date ring around the edge of the dial is laid out from the eight o’clock position to the four, and does not form a complete unbroken circle.

On the dial, three subdials display the classic configuration of weekday, month, and moonphase, which illustrates the month-long cycle in both northern and southern hemispheres at the six o’clock, and which is so accurate, it requires just one adjustment of a single day in 122 years.

Comprising 359 individual components, the brand new PF339 calibre is a complex in-house manufactured self-winding movement which has been meticulously hand finished to haute horlogerie standards throughout. The sapphire exhibition caseback reveals the immaculate Côtes de Genève striping on the movement plate as well as the18ct gold oscillating weight, which is decorated with a barleycorn guilloché, maintaining a power reserve of a minimum of fifty hours from its series mounted double barrels, while the balance beats at 28’800 vib/h.

A truly exceptional wristwatch for the savant connoisseur collector, the PF Tonda Annual Calendar in stainless steel is an exquisitely manufactured piece from the prestigious Parmigiani Fleurier manufacture, which has a stately and authoritative presence on the wrist