Parmigiani Fleurier L’Armoriale Watch Review
The Parmigiani Fleurier L’Armoriale pocket watch, a pièce unique, wonderfully showcases an array of artisanal skills, including Grand Feu enamelling, hand-engraving and chain-making. A period hand-wound movement (1890), made by Golay Leresche & Fils has been restored to its former glory. Endowed with a chronograph, minute repeater and perpetual calendar the watch is an extraordinary example of no-compromise watchmaking. Mark McArthur-Christie struggles to mask his admiration for this timepiece and laments not paying more attention at school.
From pocket watches to wristwatches
Assuming you own a pair of jeans, you might occasionally wonder what that vestigial pocket that sits just above your right hip is for. Too small for car keys (they always get stuck) and too fiddly for change, an Airpod case fits well, but that’s not what it was designed for.
Back in the latter half of the nineteenth century, people didn’t wear wristwatches. Well, men didn’t, anyway. Wristlet watches were jewellery and thus the preserve of women. Blokes simply didn’t wear their watch on their wrist, they carried it in their pocket as was right and proper. Even agricultural workers in the US did likewise – hence that little watch pocket you still find in a pair of jeans today.
When army officers realised how impractical it was to fish around for a pocket watch while under enemy fire they began putting them in leather wrist cases. Thereafter, they migrated to wristwatches. In fact, because of the associations with heroism and military victory, wristwatches quickly became de rigueur.
Since then, pocket watches have been a bit of a Watchworld niche. While wristwatch values have accelerated stratospherically in seeming defiance of all natural laws, pocket watch prices have remained largely earthbound. This is plainly daft; there are so many beautiful, undervalued historically important pocket watches that really do deserve more recognition.
Parmigiani Fleurier L’Armoriale – a birthday present
Perhaps with L’Armoriale, Parmigiani may start to turn the tide. If there’s any justice…
Each year, the Fleurier-based business makes a watch to commemorate their eponymous founder’s birthday. Where some of us got socks and a bottle of single malt, in late 2023, Monsieur Parmigiani received this minute repeater with a fully restored and reworked movement from 1890, made by Golay Leresche & Fils in Geneva. Presented in a 58 mm, 18ct gold case, the watch also features Grand Feu enamelling and a handcrafted, 68-link 18ct gold chain. I clearly should have paid more attention at school.
Parmigiani Fleurier L’Armoriale – A. Golay Leresche & Fils movement
Inside the case, at the heart of the watch, sits an A. Golay Leresche & Fils chronograph minute repeater movement from the latter part of the nineteenth century. Appropriately, Michel Parmigiani restored the movement himself in 1985 and added his own perpetual calendar.
In 1985, movements like this were getting tossed into the parts bin (at best) as their gold cases were weighed in for scrap. After all, who wanted one of those finicky wiggly-spring movements when you could have a proper modern watch regulated by a quartz crystal? Not just saving but enhancing this example took proper vision, care and a love for real watchmaking. It’s certainly paid off.
Golay Leresche & Fils movements, even in their base form, are far from ugly. The firm had a particular penchant for elegant bridgework and countersunk jewels with everything hand-finished and every edge – even on actuating levers – bevelled. Parmigiani Fleurier has taken this one from 1890 to a different level, though. The engraving, polishing and finishing are so much tighter than the original, beautiful as that was. For example, although the original movement backplate would have been plain, it’s now fully engraved. And although we’re not 100% sure, we’d take a flying guess that nearly all the movement screws have been replaced and polished, too.
The addition of a perpetual calendar
Now the movement runs not just the original chronograph and minute repeater, its new (ok, 1985) perpetual calendar also has hand-hammered white gold moons for the moonphase and an aventurine sky.
It’s well worth finding a loupe when looking at the dial. Around the case edge is the hand-engraved coffering that Parmigiani has taken over to the caseback edges too. Then there’s a brushed minute track with blacked-in ticks and numerals for the central chrono seconds. The clear, simple numeral style is consistent across the dial – as are the markers. Moving in, there’s a white gold, engraved chain motif before you reach the brown-treated 18ct white gold engraved dial itself with its rectangular hour-markers, PF logo appliqué and counter contours in 18ct white gold. The hands are openworked, delta-shaped and again formed of 18ct white gold with the chronograph hand in heat-blued steel (which neatly picks up on the aventurine blue of the moonphase dial). There’s plenty of watchmaking to enjoy but, at the same time, the whole plot is perfectly legible despite the complications.
Parmigiani Fleurier L’Armoriale – Grand Feu enamelling
Where the dial is understated – relatively at least – the caseback most certainly is not. That’s not to say it’s brash; far from it. Master Enameller Vanessa Lecci has used the hideously difficult Grand Feu technique to echo the motif on the floor of the Chamber of the Giants in Mantua’s Palazzo Te in coloured translucent enamel. Easy enough to write – very much harder to realise in 18ct gold and enamel. We’re not sure whether the Olympian defeat of the uncivilised giants is meant to echo the victory of proper watchmaking over barbarian quartz, but heck, why shouldn’t it be?
Parmigiani Fleurier L’Armoriale – hand engraving
The foundation of the caseback – and the case itself – is down to master engravers Eddy Jaquet and Christophe Blandenier. Even the bow, crown and lever that activates the minute repeater have been included in the engravingfest. Set into the case sides, unobtrusively, are the tiny correctors for the calendar functions.
After the love and care that has gone into the case, dial and movement, you couldn’t just put the L’Armoriale on a standard pocket watch chain, no matter how beautiful. The firm chose master chain-maker Laurent Jolliet – one of the last practitioners of his craft – to hand make the chain. Its motif mirrors the hand-engraved patterns on the watch case, as well as on the repeater lever, so it perfectly matches the watch. Each of the 68 links is cut, finished and joined by hand, including the one carrying the Parmigiani Fleurier motif. You could quite happily sit and while away a few hours just admiring the chain alone.
Parmigiani Fleurier L’Armoriale – closing remarks
Haute Horlogerie tends to be given to hyperbole, with words like ‘exceptional’ and ‘unique’ getting batted around casually. But every now and then, the hyperbole is justified. Some watches exist at the point where engineering, materials science, watchmaking and art intersect. This, as Guido Terreni, Parmigiani Fleurier’s CEO, says is one of them. “L’Armoriale is not just a unique pocket watch; it is a Masterpiece… It reminds us that sometimes, watchmaking can transcend Time to become a true work of art.”
Perhaps the only shame is that it’s way too gorgeous – and valuable – to even think about carrying in your jeans watch pocket.
Further reading
Technical specification
- Model: Parmigiani Fleurier L’Armoriale
- Reference: PFH993-2010001-200100
- Case: 18 ct white gold, diameter 58.2 mm, height 17.5 mm
- Functions: hours, minutes, small seconds, minute repeater, chronograph, perpetual calendar
- Movement: PF993, hand-wound movement, frequency 18,000 vph (2.5 Hz), 29 jewels, power reserve 30 hours, 375 components.
- Chain: 18-carat white gold, entirely handcrafted, length 300 mm
- Price: one-of-a-kind watch – not for sale