The world timer is nearly synonymous with Patek Philippe. The brand didn’t invent the complication, and it’s not the only one to do it today, but at least in the world of high-end watches, Patek Philippe is regarded as doing it best. The Patek Philippe World Time goes back to the very first such model, the Reference 1415 produced from 1939-1954. In the almost 90 years since, the dial and idea behind the World Time hasn’t changed much. Last year, in Tokyo, Patek introduced the latest evolution of its storied World Time, the 5330. This limited Tokyo edition came in a bright purple dial and represented the first Patek Philippe World Time with a date. At Watches and Wonders Geneva 2024, the brand finally did the expected and released the production version, the Patek Philippe 5330G World Time Date in a denim blue dial.
On the wrist, the watch wears as elegantly as you’d expect. At 40mm in diameter and 11.57mm thick, the white gold case felt slightly chunkier than many modern high-end dress watches, but as soon as I reminded myself of everything going on in the watch, it all made sense. Further, the lugs are long, generously curved, and dip below the plane of the case, ensuring a nice little hug to the wrist. The case itself manages a modern silhouette, fully polished with stepped lugs, arguably its best feature. The entire case is polished, with a knurled crown at 3 o’clock, an inset date corrector at 8, and a time zone selector at 10. Pushing the selector provides a wonderfully tactile experience, and given the dance that to occasions upon the dial, I found myself pushing it for no reason other than to push it.
The great calamity, some would have you think, is the strap. Patek and denim? Denim and Patek? Never! It couldn’t be! Well, it’s not quite, but it’s close enough. The soft fabric stitched onto the leather strap has what even the brand refers to as a denim pattern. While I probably don’t need to tell you it was comfortable on the wrist, what I do need to tell you is that I love the look. The World Time complication is so snooty and high-class. Pairing it with anything even remotely denim deflates the ego of the watch a bit. Together with the blue-gray [read: denim] dial, the strap creates a cohesive casual look that moves away from the stodgy aristocratic aesthetic of Patek.
A worldtime complication and its efficacy lay solely in the execution of the dial. After almost a century of using the complication, it’s no surprise that Patek has gotten quite good with it. There are four sections of the dial: the date ring, the city ring, the 24-hour ring, and the main dial displaying local time. The date ring sits at the far edge with a gentle slope, with the date indicated by a glass hand with a lacquered red tip. It’s incredibly subtle and does its job in not interrupting the view of the rest of the dial. That’s not just about beauty: the thinking is that with a world time complication, you should at any time, be able to glance down and tell the time anywhere in the world — without interruption.
And so too can you with the 5330. It was easy to set the watch to the city of my choosing. Push the corrector until that city sits at 12 o’clock, set the local time, and then set the date with the corrector at 8. (Patek is very specific that the date is to be set only with the provided “correction stylus.”) Thereafter, when traveling from one time zone to another, you just push the selector and watch the city and 24-hour rings jump until your new zone is at 12. The gold crescent moon on the date ring separates day and night, while the red dot on the city ring marks the international date line. The local time is displayed in the center with short lumed hands and applied indices against a stamped “carbon” pattern. I’d call it a box weave or whatever the fancy French word, but I think “carbon” hits on Patek’s desired version of youthful. Whatever your views on it being stamped or carbon or any element of the dial, I found it to be easy to read, beautiful to look at, and well-organized as these things go.
The most impressive feat of the watch is not the world time, though. It’s the date display and I’d encourage you to watch the video Patek created to explain how impressive it is. I’ll do my best to explain what it does, and the video can explain how. The date display is linked to the local time and changes instantaneously when you reset your local time after traveling. The issue with this is that the date needs to be able to jump at midnight and when the international dateline is crossed. The sorcerers in the Patek Philippe Department of Witchcraft and Wizardry managed to achieve this with some complex gearing. Worried Thierry Stern might not pass them on their N.E.W.T.s, they also managed a system that keeps the date in place at midnight when crossing the dateline without the mechanism locking up.
The Patek Philippe Caliber 240 HU C that powers the 5330 is expectedly beautiful. The HU designation refers to “Heure Universelle,” the first World Time movement featuring the 515 HU. Self-certified by Patek with its own Patek Philippe seal, the movement features 306 parts, a full 67 more than its dateless counterpart. As mentioned, a lot of that has to do with how the date mechanism was implemented, with concentric star gears in a differential system (seriously, go watch the video). Unfortunately, the gearing for the system lay on the dial side of the movement. Fortunately, the movement is beautiful. It provides 38-48 hours of power reserve at 21,600 vph. Of note, Patek has recently announced that all of its movements with the Spiromax balance (such as this one) will be regulated and tested to -1/+2 seconds per day.
If you’ve been paying attention to Patek Philippe for the last few years, you’ve no doubt noticed it’s somewhat subtle efforts to release more youthful watches. In that time, we’ve been introduced to a side of the brand not at odds with, but complementary to the upper-crust, high-falutin reputation of the brand. There are brands that, in an attempt to woo younger buyers, might have pivoted too aggressively or introduced a line that doesn’t fit in the catalog. With the 5330, Patek smartly tweaks a classic in ways that make it appealing to new and old customers. The Patek Philippe 5330G-001 World Time Date is priced at $76,590 USD. For more information, please visit the Patek Philippe website.