Hands-On: the Parmigiani Fleurier Toric Petite Seconde
“Quiet luxury.” That’s the phrase that kept getting thrown at me during my week with the Parmigiani Fleurier Toric Petite Seconde. “This is so quiet luxury.” It was an almost near-universal response, a constant chorus scoring my time with one of the most talked about new dress watches of 2024. Weirdly, that wasn’t my experience of the watch at all. To me, the Toric Petite Seconde was a dress watch for the guy who doesn’t need to get all that dressy. The guy more likely to be caught in a green chore coat than a cashmere sweater. Cards on the table, my wardrobe is not all that luxurious. I tend to prefer Levi’s with Blundstones or L.L. Bean flannels and Patagonia Jackets over Loro Piana and Brunello Cucinelli. A sizable portion of my clothing has been purchased at REI. It’s an aesthetic my brother jokingly calls my “man of the people look” and, while I think that may be an overstatement, it’s probably not far off the mark. Unsurprisingly, my taste in watches tends to skew in a similar direction - I have a predilection for great dive watches and solid steel three-handers. Sure, a two-tone Datejust might make its way into the rotation here or there, but, to balance it out, I’ve spent a good portion of this year falling back in love with digital watches. I tell you all this so I can say, honestly, that when a brand like Parmigiani Fleurier releases a watch like the Toric, a small seconds dress watch available exclusively in platinum or rose gold, I...
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