Parmigiani Tonda 1950 Watch Hands-On

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed)
Jan 18th 2011 at 9:02AM

The pleasure I get from wearing a finely made, elegant dress watch is hard to describe. Probably because they are typically "not my kind of watches." I am a big sports watch guy. Not just that I am just really in to sport watches, but also because I like large size sport watches. So it may not be obvious why I would like a nicely made, understated formal watch that crouches low on my wrist. I think it has to do with elegance and graceful purpose. Dress watches are easy on the eye, have very delicate and attractive lines, are dead easy to read, and are other in precious metals with well-made movements.

Not that this Parmigiani Tonda 1950 watch is alone in what it is, but it is a fine example of the genre. I previously wrote about the Tonda 1950 here. At the time I appreciated the timepiece's good looking design, and loved the in-house made ultra-thin automatic movement with a micro-rotor. Now, as I wear the watch feeling its slim case wrap around my wrist, I smile and am happy to be wearing a suit. The 39mm 18k pink or gold watch begs to be dressed up. It is not a watch for casual wear - it just isn't. Wear it with jeans and the watch will frown at you. With a black tie Mr. Tonda wags an invisible tail.

Gallery: Parmigiani Tonda 1950 watches

Parmigiani succeeded in making the Tonda 1950 not only a fashion watch, but a watch lover's watch. Quality and legibility are impressive, and the little guy just looks so good. It competes with a number of other watches. Two that come to mind are Piaget's Altiplano collection, as well as the Audemars Piguet Jules Audemars collection pieces. The three all have good qualities to them, and are yet able to stand out from one another. Parmigiani decided to be a bit avant garde with their piece - the most notable element being the large stylized hands that are a winner in my book. Related to this, is the fact that this is one of the few high-end dress watches with lumed hands.

Overall the pieces is just gorgeous - in either dial. Though I would have loved for there to be an 18k red or pink gold model with a deep black dial. If you can shell out the approx. $20,000 price for one of these, you won't be disappointed at your next black tie event. You might just look for a few extra weddings to crash just as an excuse to wear the watch.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch reviews site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: parmigiani, timepiece, watch