For most of history, a woman was not expected to wear a watch. As if she had no use for time.
Elizabeth I owned watches. In 1571, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, famously presented her with an elaborate jeweled watch set in an armlet as a New Year's gift. For the next three centuries, a woman's watch usually swung from a ribbon, nestled inside a pendant, or hung from a chatelaine at her waist. The wrist belonged to bracelets, lace, and gloves, not mechanics.
There were brilliant exceptions. Around 1810, Abraham-Louis Breguet is believed to have made what is often regarded as the first wristwatch created for a woman: an extraordinary commission for Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples and Napoleon's younger sister. Nearly sixty years later, in 1868, Patek Philippe produced a wristwatch for the Hungarian Countess Koscowicz of Hungary; Queen Victoria owned Patek wristwatches as well, lending royal approval to a fashion still so novel that it remained the privilege of queens and countesses rather than ordinary women.
These were magnificent anomalies. The modern wristwatch arrived by accident. War taught men to read the hour without reaching into a pocket. Then came another war. During the long years of rationing and absence, women stepped into factories, ministries, laboratories, railway stations, hospitals and workshops. Their days were governed by shifts, timetables and departures. Jewelled extravagance gave way to practical necessity. Yet history has a habit of swinging like a pendulum. When peace returned in 1945, women did not simply return to ornament; they expected ornament to keep pace with modern life. Air travel, faster trains, and a newly international world demanded accuracy as much as elegance.
This Patek Philippe was made in that very year, when those two ambitions finally became one. It belongs to the brief, intoxicating age of the cocktail watch, when Geneva's greatest Maisons competed not to build larger, more complicated mechanisms but to make impossibly small ones. Inside this case, barely nineteen millimetres across, is a hand-wound movement requiring tolerances measured in fractions of a millimetre.
During this period, platinum was requisitioned for the front, and the airy filigree of Art Deco went with it. In its place came rose gold: yellow and pink alloys warmed with copper, worked into volume rather than lace. The Retro jeweler loved the bow, the scroll, the ribbon, the fold. The case blossoms into two fluted fans, gold pleated like a scallop's shell; its bracelet is a frank procession of polished brick links; its clasp, two gold rings gripping a fluted drum, is machine-age hardware dressed for the ballroom. And at the center, 2.70 carats of old European–cut diamonds, faceted by hand, each stone glowing low and warm as candlelight, ring a dial signed in blued cursive: Patek Philippe & Co., Genève.
Seventy-seven grams of gold. Two sets of hallmarks, Swiss and French, struck into bracelet and case. It was made in the year the world raised its first glass to a peace no one had been sure would come. Every measured beat of its movement belongs to the great human instinct to begin again: to make beauty after ruin. It has been wound for eighty years, and still refuses to run out of hope.
Maker: Patek Philippe
Model: Rare MidCentury
Year: 1945
Material: 18 Karat Rose Gold and 2.70 Carats of Old European Cut Diamonds
Dial: Rose Gold
Case Measurement: 19mm
Movement: Manual Wind
Condition: Very Good
Weight: 77 Grams
Size: Fits Up to 6.7" Wrist
Made in Switzerland and France - French hallmarks on bracelet and case
All vintage and pre-owned watches sold by Stephanie Windsor are guaranteed to be genuine and authentic. We also guarantee the proper functioning of your watch’s mechanical movement for one (1) year from the date of purchase. Our warranty does not cover damage resulting from accidents, misuse, neglect, water damage or normal wear and tear. Please note that we do not guarantee waterproofing on vintage or pre-owned timepieces. We therefore do not recommend submerging your timepiece in water or any liquid.
