Patek Philippe at Watches and Wonders 2026: Twenty new watches, a technical first, and a fable about a crow

Twenty new models are not an unusual number for Patek Philippe. What is unusual is the concentration of ambition across them. A wristwatch that tells you when the sun rises and sets, correcting itself automatically when the clocks change. The brand’s first automaton wristwatch in modern history. A Nautilus turning fifty and returning, for the occasion, to the purity of its original time-only display. Walking through Patek’s presentation in Geneva, the range of it is what stays with you. From the deeply arcane to the beautifully inevitable, and everything between.

Celestial Sunrise/Sunset

A wristwatch that displays the times of sunrise and sunset for Geneva, with a patented movement that corrects both indications automatically when the clocks change. In a 47mm white gold case charting the night sky above the city, it stops you mid-stride. A complication that is, in the most literal sense, about how the day begins and ends. Patek’s most poetic technical statement in years.

‘The Crow and the Fox’ Automaton

Drawn from La Fontaine’s fable of a crow flattered into dropping his cheese by a fox of considerable cunning, and from a 1958 pocket watch held in the Patek Philippe Museum, this is the brand’s first automaton wristwatch in modern history. Hours and minutes are displayed on demand, the scene animating beneath a rich brown opaline dial in a rose gold case. A fable about the consequences of vanity, rendered as one of the most covetable objects in the room.

Cubitus Perpetual Calendar

The Cubitus has moved quickly from introduction to institution, which is a particular Patek skill. The perpetual calendar gives the collection its first grand complication, in platinum, with an open-worked blue dial that reveals the skeletonised movement beneath through characteristic horizontal pierced strips. The mechanics become the decoration. In a perpetual calendar, that is the right choice.

24-Hour Alarm with Date

Alarm complications are technically demanding, practical, and rarely given the aesthetic attention they deserve. The 5322G addresses all three. White gold, 41mm, a hobnail-guilloché caseband paired with a textured lacquer dial, and a movement that allows the alarm to be set for any point in a full 24-hour cycle. It sounds like a hammer on a classic gong. Useful, beautifully made, and characteristically understated about both.

Minute Repeater Calatrava

One of the thinnest minute repeaters Patek has produced, in a modern Calatrava case. White gold, a navy-blue dial with an embossed carbon motif, and a self-winding movement. The Calatrava has always been the vehicle for Patek’s most elegantly resolved ideas. A thin minute repeater is exactly the kind of idea it suits.

Gem-Set Perpetual Calendar Minute Repeater

Eight pieces. The production limit is not a marketing decision. Paraiba tourmalines, with their extraordinary neon blue-green colour caused by copper traces in the beryl, are scarce, and the number of stones required for this dial sets the ceiling. Platinum case, Balinese mother-of-pearl dial, perpetual calendar and minute repeater complications beneath. The most rarefied piece in the 2026 collection, and the one for which the word rarefied is, for once, literally accurate.

World Time

Yellow gold, carmine-red lacquer dial, every time zone readable simultaneously, updated with one button push. A watch that is useful, confident, and entirely aware that carmine red and yellow gold is not a combination that asks permission.

Golden Ellipse

The Golden Ellipse’s oval case has been proportioned according to the golden ratio since 1968, which explains why it still looks correct from any angle. Both the Jumbo and medium versions return in olive-green sunburst dials, on ultra-thin movements that place them among the flattest watches in the collection. Never the loudest watch in the room, but most often the one people remember.

Nautilus 50th Anniversary

Gerald Genta designed the Nautilus in 1976 with the porthole as his departure point, and changed the industry’s understanding of what sports and luxury could mean together. Fifty years on, four limited pieces mark the anniversary by returning to the time-only display of the original, removing seconds and date to draw the eye back to the dial and the proportions that made the Nautilus what it is. Two large white gold models, a slightly smaller platinum version, and a white gold desk clock that is equal parts playful and historically minded. Fifty years, and the Nautilus still does not need to explain itself.

Patek Philippe is available exclusively in New Zealand through Partridge

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