Hands-On I Hereby Resolve To Celebrate This 36mm Parmigiani

In about three weeks, it will be the time of year I find myself saddled with self-loathing and a big bag of adaptogen powder I'll never touch again. All this navel-gazing is to say that I can't think of a more perfect watch to consider now, at this moment, than this one, the Tonda PF Automatic Rose Gold Deep Ruby.

Named not for the five children of a Laurel Canyon starlet, but instead for its attributes, this watch took the already sporty yet refined Tonda line and gave them a few ever so slight, ever so elegant changes, that resulted in the sort of larger impact New Year's Day Nora can only dream of.

Now, I am not alone in my admiration for this watch. The GPHG pluckedthe TPFARGDR (rolls off the tongue doesn't it?)  from the crowd of hopefuls and awarded it best "Ladies' watch." This win is an interesting aesthetic shift from previous category winners like Piaget, Chanel, and Hublot. In fact, with maybe the exceptions of the Delaneau Rondo Translucent and a few of the Chanel watches (though loud in their own ways) all of the watches in the category have been diamond heavy at best, gaudy at worst.

This is often the major gripe I hear about "women's" watches – it's not that all women object to having their own category, it's that the category is often full of more plumage than practicality. Parmigiani's watch, and its win, seem to be catching up with the idea that a women's watch can be many things at once – for starters, sparkly, subdued, and powerful.

Which brings me back to my favorite subject: me. While I like diamonds on their own (who am I? Shirley Bassey??) I am not a huge fan of them on watches. I like a pretty minimalist watch (and if we're doing bling, let's do it high/low) and when spending my imaginary thousands of dollars, the extra cost for carats just doesn't seem worth it to me. But here, these baguettes are placed ever so smartly (from below, I learned, how cool!) on the dial where the regular degular indices would be, in a similar shape as the rhodium-plated gold indices found on other Tonda models, including the fan favorite GMT.

At first glance, you'd be forgiven for failing to even notice they're diamonds at all. They add dimension to the dial, especially when you play with the watch in the light, and it isn't overly ostentatious. The rose gold model was released alongside a more traditional sport watch looking grey dial and steel version that has the same diamond application and it doesn't look out of place at all. A small change that makes a large impact.

What I am a sucker for, much to the chagrin of Malaika Crawford, is rose gold. Pink gold, red gold, you name it – if it's got a little copper in it, I'm there. Both the bracelet and case are 18-karat rose gold, polished and satin-finished and the knurled bezel keeps the dial from feeling too sterile.

PF has used rose gold in the Tonda line before and If you like rose gold, you'll like this execution. The best part of the metal though is how well it plays with the dial, the true star of the show. A Grain d'Orge guilloché dial, the color is listed as "Deep Ruby" but I think it is absolutely fair, correct even, to call it "purple."

And like the baguettes on the dial, it is the purple that holds polite conversation rather than shrieks. It is multi-faceted and shifts ever so slightly in the light. I saw the watch for the first time in the bright Arizona sun surrounded by other women in the watch biz and then again in the sepia-ish haze of our New York office. Both times I thought "yeah, I mean, this looks purple for real," yet the color seemed alive, wavering with movement like a highway in the heat.

The headline, and what I think really makes this seem like a "watch 4 grrls", is the new 36mm size. The watch doesn't look markedly different from the other, larger Tondas, in fact, everything is so balanced that you would barely notice the change at all were it not for the presence on the wrist. Well, would you look at that, another small change with a big impact. Inside the watch is the automatic in-house PF770 movement, newly executed for the smaller size. There's 60-hours of power reserve and a skeletonized oscillating weight visible through an open caseback.

What I think is notable about this watch is that while it will appeal to Tonda fans who have been clamoring for a smaller size, it can also pull in folks from other aesthetic tribes who are maybe Parmigiani curious. Love diamonds? Come over here and look at this dial. Interested in award-winning watchmaking? Right this way.

This watch sits in its simplicity, it is a time only, integrated bracelet automatic watch after all, and little by little takes tiny steps towards becoming a brighter, warmer, version of itself.