Watch of the Week: Patek Philippe 5212A Calatrava Weekly Calendar

The Patek Philippe 5212A Calatrava Weekly Calendar was one of the most surprising watches of last year, and for more reasons than one. It is always exciting when an esteemed and traditional brand like Patek Philippe goes into a new direction because you know it has to be good. They most certainly had no problem meeting these high expectations and did so with an entirely new watch.

Although a Calatrava is the 5212A far more casual than most of the other watches within this collection. Patek Philippe achieved this in the first place by opting for stainless steel for the case. With a diameter of 40mm, it is not extremely large, but substantial enough to distance itself from being a dress watch. Its size is also utilized to the fullest by Patek Philippe’s designers, as they needed quite some space on the dial for its complications. Being a weekly calendar, this watch not only tells the date, with a date wheel and a traditional window, but also has two hands, one indicated the day and the other the week number and corresponding month. This means that the dial holds a lot of information, yet because of its size, it doesn’t look crowded.

Two other aspects that contribute significantly to the casual character of this Patek Philippe are the strap and the font used on the dial. The latter is a reproduction of handwritten characters. They give an almost personal touch to the dial, which becomes especially powerfull because Patek Philippe kept the rest fo the design very clean. The strap is hand-stitched and made from calfskin. Unlike the alligator-leather, which is the standard at this tier of watchmaking, does the calfskin add to the clean and casual look.

The watch is powered by caliber 26-330, which can also be admired through the sapphire crystal in the caseback. The movement itself is based on caliber 324, with a module added for the calendar functions. This increases the height from 3.30mm for the base caliber to 4.82mm for caliber 26-330. While this is in percentage a significant increase, it is in practice still a very thin caliber. This also becomes evident when we look at the overall height of the watch, which is 10.79 mm. Overall is the Calatrava Weekly Calendar, an interesting and smart addition to the Patek Philippe collection. This timepiece is a desirable alternative for people who want a watch next to their Nautilus or Aquanaut, which is still casual in appearance yet, at the same time, slightly more elegant as well.