Perrelet
Retrograde display: definition
A watch with a retrograde display does not display the time in a circular fashion, as we are used to seeing. Rather, it sets out the time in a linear manner. Instead of the hands going round in a circle, they travel along an arc, and when they get to the end, they jump back to the beginning, and so on.
Here is a picture of a watch we have already featured on this site: the Perrelet Regulator with retrograde hours.
This watch has retrograde hours; this means that the hour hand moves in a linear manner. You can see the hours numbered 1 to 12 in the top part of the dial. The hour hand moves from 1, all the way to 12, and then jumps back to the beginning. In this watch, the minute and second hands both move in a circular manner, and it is only the hour hand that features the retrograde concept.
So what do you think of a watch with retrograde display? I am not all that keen on them. I like the Perrelet Regulator featured in this post, but what caught my eye about it was its general design, and not the retrograde hours concept.
Perrelet Regulator with Retrograde hours
OK, here we go: this is simply the most arresting watch I have seen all year. And I have seen quite a few.
Perrelet have created what they describe as “[t]he world’s first automatic Regulator watch with retrograde hours with its unique combination of separate hour and minute displays”.
Some more detail from Perrelet about the retrograde hours concept:
Within Perrelet’s new, exclusive calibre P-221, manufactured in the finest watchmaking workshops in the Vallée de Joux, the ‘Retrograde Hours’ model is equipped with an impressive aperture which is split into 12 zones for the 12 hours and corresponds to half a day.
When the hour hand reaches the end of the 12th segement and the minute hands arrives in the 59 minute zone, the hour hand performs a retrograde jump, moving to the beginning of the 1st segement to resume its twelve-hour cycle until the next jump between 12:59 pm and 13:01 pm or between 00:59 am and 1:01 am. The minute hand is located in the central axis of the watch within a large counter positioned at 6 o’clock.
This model will be available in the summer, in either a pink gold or stainless steel case. I think I’ll prefer the pink gold. Watch this space, I’ll be writing an update when the watches become available.
