It’s usually my cat or the vibration of my Jawbone activity tracker that gets me up in the morning, but in the case of Thierry Stern, president of Patek Philippe, it’s innovation. In the brand’s latest campaign to promote its more technical side, Mr Stern explains that innovation can “open the door to new ways of thinking.”
Given the company’s prestigious history, as well as the ever-present notion that one is only ever a temporary custodian of its timepieces, it’s vitally important that research and innovation at the company’s headquarters in Plan-les-Ouates is ploughed into technology that will bring lasting benefits. “Technical advances are introduced to improve the long-term functional integrity of our watches,” stresses Mr Stern. It is because the company is family-owned and independent that Mr Stern can ensure that these innovations are never marketing gimmicks, which is where the title of this campaign comes from.
The short video of the campaign ends with one of the company’s most significant innovations of recent times: the Spiromax® balance spring. First introduced at Baselworld in 2006 in the Patek Philippe Advanced Research Ref. 5350, the Spiromax® balance spring is made of Silinvar™, a material that was developed jointly with other partners in the Swiss watch industry. Patek Philippe’s research and development department combined this new material with the use of a patented “Patek Philippe” terminal curve, which has a thicker cross-section at its outer edge that ensures concentric breathing of the spring. Furthermore, because the terminal curve is along the same plane as the expansion and contraction of the spring relative to its centre, it also allows the spring to be made three times thinner than springs with Philips or Breguet overcoils, allowing its use in ultra-thin movements.
The Spiromax® balance spring is used in conjunction with another Patek Philippe invention: the Gyromax® balance wheel. This wheel design replaces the screws protruding around the circumference of variable inertial balance wheels (which can be screwed in or out to adjust the moment of inertia of the balance wheel) with adjustable collets placed on the upper surface of the wheel that have a cut-out section which means that their weight can be displaced by turning the collet to adjust the moment of inertia of the balance. The advantage of this design is that the diameter of the balance wheel itself can be made bigger, allowing for a greater moment of inertia. The design also generates less air resistance. The fact that Swiss patents were granted to Patek Philippe for the Gyromax balance on May 15, 1949 and December 31, 1951, and that the balance was first used in watches in 1952, is the perfect illustration of what Thierry Stern means by “no gimmicks, thank you”.
Patek Philippe – No Gimmicks, Thank You from Worldtempus.com on Vimeo.
