Parmigiani Fleurier celebrates the advent of the Chinese New Year with an exceptional, extremely complicated watch: the new Tonda PF Xiali Complete Chinese Calendar.
This is not a traditional calendar with the directions translated into Chinese, as you might mistakenly think. It is an actual Chinese calendar, which, for those who do not know, has a significantly higher degree of complication and which we will let you discover in this article.
The advent of Tonda PF
The Tonda PF represents a new chapter for the brand, which in 2021 modernized and redesigned their most prominent design, namely the Tonda.
This new collection goes head to head with the most important sports watches with integrated bracelets, however, bringing an unusual character that the brand has finally managed to pull off. The Tonda has been created in numerous editions before these but the PF in our opinion is the most successful, with balanced, elegant and particularly interestingly finished design canons, such as the lugs.
The brand had already created two other special editions with the Gregorian Calendar and the Muslim Calendar. However, to celebrate the Chinese New Year, the Tonda PF Xiali was unveiled, combining this new aesthetic key with a complication never before seen in the watchmaking world.
The complexity of chinese calendar
The calendar is still one of the few complications in watchmaking that performs a function that is immediately readable and of practical use, as well as having an often symmetrical and pleasing aesthetic.
The Chinese calendar, however, is not so simple compared to that used in the West. Indeed, it has its own interpretation: it combines some elements of the solar calendar and some of the lunar calendar, calculated separately and then synchronized.
This synchronization is done by adding a lunar month, the 13th, so that the two cycles coincide. It recurs approximately every 3 years.
The Chinese calendar divides the calendar year into 24 names. The New Year is named after the month preceding it, which in the case of 2023 is the year of the rabbit. It usually varies between Jan. 21 and Feb. 19 and is obtained through complex calculations.
Our calendar, namely the Gregorian calendar, names the months and counts the years, while the Chinese calendar does the opposite: years have a name and months have a number.
These annual names have a cycle that repeats every 60 years, but being full of calculations, it is virtually impossible to create a Chinese perpetual calendar as a watch mechanism. Parmigiani Fleurier, however, went to extremes to be able to create the most complete and accurate version one could wish for.
The numbering system of time units is based on the combination of a decimal cycle, the ten Heavenly Stems, and a duodecimal cycle, the twelve Earthly Branches.
The 10 Heavenly Branches have the function of assigning elements to the seasons and planets: water, wood, metal, fire and earth. The 12 Earthly Branches correspond to the signs of the zodiac: each is represented by an animal, which designates the years of the sexagesimal cycle and will influence the fate and character of human beings born in that year.
The Operation of the Tonda PF Xiali Full Chinese Calendar
Incredible but true, Parmigiani Fleurier has managed to condense all this complex information onto a dial:
- hours and minutes; the display of the month and its numbering;
- an additional month where applicable (i.e., every three years);
- short month (29 days) or long month (30 days);
- solar terms as corresponding to 24 divisions of the 15th of the sun’s path along the ecliptic (the sun’s path as seen from the earth);
- pointer and name of the year;
- indication of the animal and elements with alternating colors, both Yin and Yang;
- numbering of the days and phases of the moon.
Below we have included these more explanatory images made by the brand, to try to give you an even fuller explanation of this very complicated Tonda PF Xiali.
Final take
Telling the story of this watch is as complicated as the mechanism itself. This exercise in style and engineering for Parmigiani is definitely another point in their favor and one that is repositioning the brand very positively. Now we just have to wait for the news they have in store for the end of March!
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