Hands-On Parmigiani Fleurier's Toric Petite Seconde Breathes New Life Into Its Original Collection

"I would say over 10 or 12 years, the brand really lost a little bit of its direction," Terreni told me. "So you have very interesting pieces that are collectible from the early days of the Toric, because that's where the prestige of the brand comes from. And then there was a decade in which I think you have where the brand lost a little bit of contact with its clientele. The first line that I chose to work on was with the Tonda PF, because it was the most urgent and had the most potential in terms of sales. But the Toric is the collection with which we were born. So it goes well of saying that we have to work on it."

What I didn't realize, and would come to find out during Watches & Wonders in April 2024, is my timing in asking about the Toric couldn't have been worse. Terreni later told me that just before our meeting, he had received an early prototype of the Toric relaunch and felt it completely missed the mark. He was ready to throw the entire idea out and start from scratch, potentially pushing the relaunch by at least another year. Luckily, the core ideas were still right. Though the project was reworked significantly, the team was able to make the fantastic reinterpretation of the Toric that we were shown at Watches & Wonders, delivering in September 2024.

The new Toric line was launched with three pieces: two variants of the Toric Petite Seconde we see here and a Split-Second Chronograph I'll cover at a future date. The most recent versions of the Toric seemed stuck between two design languages. The dial had touches of guillochage that we saw on the original line but often with applied numerals and a logo floating in a block on the dial, interrupting the design as a raised island of an afterthought. Compared to the Tonda PF, with a stripped-down dial, the Toric seemed a bit out of place.

The new Toric follows the Tonda with that simplified dial design, including the new oval logo. The 18k white gold dial sheds the guilloché for a hand-grained texture drawn from antique marine chronometers and table clocks. Michel Parmigiani has perfected this technique in his restoration work on things like Breguet's Sympathique clock, stripping the oxidized dial and creating a new grené texture with a mixture of cream of tartar, sea salt, and silver with demineralized water. The dials, finished in grey celadon (green) and sand gold, are built on an 18k white gold or rose gold plate, respectively. You can see that through the chamfered edges of the dial plate that create the layers for the subdial and near the five minute markers. Pressure is allied with a brush by hand until the maker feels resistance and tiny grains form. The dials are then finished with hand-applied 18k indices in the appropriate color.

The PF780 manually-wound movement has an equally stripped-down and modernist design language while being made fully in 18k rose gold. Only the two barrels and the balance can be seen through the 18k rose gold bridge structure, which are finished with Côtes de Fleurier, and a sandblasted plate peaks through the bottom. It's a finishing style that sits somewhere between British frosted simplicity and Swiss-decorated elegance. The movement really puts a premium on the feeling of winding the crown, a feeling that can't be beat and becomes a point of emphasis the more I handle watches and imagine my next purchase. The movement is only 3.15mm thick, beating at 28,800vph, with a 60-hour power reserve.

If this all looks very un-Toric to you, that's fine. The brand has purposefully avoided doing a reissue or remake of the original line, but has kept a few of what it considers the core elements from Michel Parmigiani's original design. The knurled bezel, inspired by Doric columns with a splash of "torus" geometry (a circle drawn around a point to create a three-dimensional "donut" of sorts, or "bagel" for the New Yorkers), continues as the through-line for the Toric line. The cases have otherwise been redesigned, with no harsh angles but rather a fluid line meant to connect through to the strap, with curved spring bars. The brand says this was meant to strive for harmony and balance, key tenets of Michel Parmigiani's original concept for the brand. I think it harmonizes the Toric with the Tonda PF for a cohesive lineup.

While the green and white (platinum) combination of the Toric is my personal favorite (I'm not yet quite 100% confident wearing gold) the rose gold Toric is stunning as well. I personally love original generation Toric watches in rose with a black dial and rose accents as it feels a bit more bold and serious. Across the board, the finishing is stunning and even the very subdued balance bridge gives enough to look at that I'm not upset there's not more of the movement showing. If I want that kind of display, I can always turn to other offerings in the Parmigiani lineup. 

You might also notice from this angle that the dial isn't perfectly flat (even discounting the sunk subsidiary seconds at six o'clock). The dial features a chevé design, where the dial drops slightly to meet the inner edge of the case, mirroring the bevel of where the sapphire meets the case.

The two final thoughtful additions to the Toric are odes to Michel Parmigiani (and their Italian-born CEO Guido Terrini). The first is the signature of Michel Parmigiani that is cut into the Côtes de Fleurier between the two barrels of the movement, a new touch on these watches for the brand's founder. The straps, meanwhile, aren't stitched in the traditional way you normally see but with "punto a mano" style stitching used by top Neapolitan tailors.

Finally, the watch wears fantastic, with a 40.6mm by 8.8mm measurement. Anything below 9mm starts to get into the sweet spot of what I would expect for high-horological dress watch sizes. The lugs are a bit shorter, which means it sits higher on the wrist but may allow people with smaller wrists (like Tony Traina shown below) to pull the watch off without much trouble. On my 7.25-inch wrist, the watch fit just right.

The new Toric line is a much more cohesive step forward for Parmigiani and will put the brand on a solid footing, not having to rely solely on the Tonda PF line as the only distinctly modern option. The price, however, may be a sticking point for some collectors. Cased in platinum and rose gold, the watches command a premium for materials and finishing, coming in at CHF 52,000 and CHF 45,000, respectively. I would consider these more thoughtful watches for a discerning collector – maybe slightly more difficult to process and justify than the Tonda PF – but at nearly twice the price of the Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante, they'll likely take some time to pick up steam with customers. I think early adopters of the new line will be happy they got in while they could, because it feels like Parmigiani has another hit on its hands.

Parmigiani Fleurier Toric Petite Seconde; 40.6mm diameter by 8.8mm thick 18k rose gold or platinum case, with 30m water resistance. Dial made in 18k white or rose gold, with hand graining and applied case-matched indexes, in sand gold for the rose gold case and grey celadon color for the platinum model; Color-matched gold hands, except for the small seconds, which is steel and plated to match. Hours, minutes, subsidiary seconds. PF780 movement in 18k rose gold running at 4Hz with double barrels giving 60 hours of power reserve. Hand-stitched nubuck alligator leather straps and case-matched pin buckle. Price: CHF 45,000 in rose gold and CHF 52,000 in platinum