Patek Philippe squares up in battle for young urban buyers with Cubitus watch collection

Patek Philippe has today unveiled its first new watch collection in 25 years, intended to reach an urban and trendy clientele, and counter a marked downturn in the industry.

Named Cubitus, the distinctively square-shaped watch with rounded corners has a sporty design and is designed to speak to the growing fashion for shaped models. It also underscores the popularity of the sporting luxe category, in particular luxury steel watches with integrated bracelets.

The launch of the Cubitus comes as Swiss watch exports declined 12.4 per cent in September, their worst monthly performance in the year to date, according to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry. The independently-owned Patek Philippe is largely seen as a bellwether for the industry, despite it not disclosing its annual financial performance. According to a Swiss watch industry report by Morgan Stanley, the watchmaker is ranked as the fifth largest, with annual revenue of SFr2.1bn ($2.4bn).

“Patek is the gold standard of the high-end complication mechanical watch industry,” says Aurel Bacs, an industry veteran and senior consultant for Phillips auction house, in association with his company Bacs & Russo. “It’s very impactful what Patek Philippe do, good or bad. And now that we’re facing difficult and challenging times, it’s even more important to see in what direction they lead the road.”

Patek Philippe launching a new collection, he adds, is significant. “It’s huge in the same way as Porsche launching a new model range, or Ferrari saying we’re doing an SUV.”

The launch of the Cubitus line was held in Munich’s Bergson, a former power station turned avant-garde cultural space. Days before the launch, there was an unofficial release of pictures of one of the new watches online, sparking reactions on specialist forums and social media. Thierry Stern, Patek Philippe president, said he was “disappointed and shocked” at the leak.

The new Cubitus collection debuts in three models. The platinum Reference 5822P features a large-format date, moon phase and day of the week, all of which change instantaneously; there are six patents pending on it. This is complemented by two models with a date function: the vintage-styled Ref 5821/1AR in steel and rose gold with a blue dial, and the all-steel 5821/1A featuring an olive-green dial. The watches are priced at £75,690, £52,480 and £35,330 respectively.

It’s part of my duty, to create something that people do not expect

The Cubitus now sits alongside the watchmaker’s other sports watch collections, the Aquanaut and the Nautilus, both of which have long waiting lists. The Aquanaut launched in 1997, while the Nautilus, first created in 1976, was relaunched in 2006. Starting prices for steel Aquanaut and Nautilus models are £19,080 for Ref 5267/200A and £27,860 for Ref 7118/1A, respectively.

Stern said the most important aspect of the new collection was the creation of a new shaped, luxury sports watch with a strong design, in a market where 85 per cent of timepieces are round. The creation of a new line would allow it to be further extended to include a family of models. “My will, for more than about 15 years, was always to find a sporty line like this,” he said.

Asked about his views on the state of the market, Stern said the recent downturn was more cyclical, and reflected the industry returning to more normal, conservative times, following a post-Covid exuberance. He added, however, that the mid-range watches, priced at SFr5,000-SFr10,000, were “not in good shape”.

Stern said he envisions the steel model in particular as attracting ambitious buyers aged between 30 and 50 who are “on the move”, while the platinum Ref 5822P is clearly targeted at older clients — “but someone who is still cool and likes the hype”.

Work on creating the Cubitus officially started about four years ago, with its conception rooted in Ref 5822P, which has a completely new movement. Patek Philippe’s dedicated movement department can spend up to a decade developing calibres, and the house is currently working on movements set for release up to 2039.

For the Cubitus, Stern selected from this list of in-development movements, choosing one based on Patek Philippe’s ultra-thin self-winding calibre 240, while the new calibre’s big date display suited the watch’s square dial.

A small band of just four individuals at the company were involved in the Cubitus’s creation: Stern; Jerome Pernici, commercial and marketing director; Patrick Cremers, director of the brand’s Geneva flagship; and Eric Fague, head of creation. Stern also occasionally sought the advice of his sons, who are both in their twenties. “They are learning [the business], but I also like their comments,” he said.

An industry leader is always scrutinised in a much harsher and more close-up way than a smaller brand

Over the course of a year of weekly meetings, the Cubitus was sketched and reworked. Early designs were either too traditional or too bulky, recalled Stern. Eventually, the final design codes of the Cubitus inched towards those of the Aquanaut and Nautilus, something Stern was unapologetic about considering those are the brand’s “strong lines”.

“When you expect me to go left, I like to go right,” he says. “It’s also part of my duty, to create something that people do not expect. I’m not a trend follower, and never will be. We have to surprise people.”

Auction house veteran Bacs says that, while Patek Philippe is an industry leader, brands should never underestimate the appetite of the market. “Even if your name is as great as Patek, Rolex, Ferrari, Porsche, you can get it wrong and launch something that is just not meeting the taste of the market,” he says. “And an [industry] leader is always scrutinised in a much harsher and more close-up way than a [smaller brand].”

In the meantime, Stern insists the new Cubitus is not indicative of a new strategy of launching more collections, more often, but about growing Patek Philippe’s customer base. Today, the brand produces 72,000 watches annually, around double when Stern first joined. “We had to be more selective [back then], we had no choice,” he said. Today, however, “I can slightly increase the number of different people who can own a Patek Philippe. I can open my collection a little wider.”