Patrick_y's comprehensive review of the Patek Philippe Tokyo Exhibition offers an invaluable first-hand account for collectors unable to attend. His detailed breakdown of each themed room, from rare handcrafts to supercomplications, provides a virtual tour, highlighting why these Grand Exhibitions are essential for understanding Patek Philippe's horological artistry and brand vision. This article synthesizes community insights, making the original forum content discoverable and valuable to new readers interested in Patek Philippe's global presence and technical showcases.
Patek Philippe, the famous watch brand that invented the keyless winding system, has started their 2023 Patek Philippe Exhibition in Tokyo! Originally planned for 2021, Patek Philippe delayed this exhibition until 2023 due to the pandemic. This event was four years in the making, and the team at Patek Philippe really strived to make this event one worthy of the brand and an event that guests would find educational and inspiring.
As usual, I flew myself out for this event and I covered all of the expenses related to this event. Thus, no portion of this report is directly sponsored by Patek Philippe. You can trust that my opinions are completely my own without any undue influence.
And let me say the most important thing - if you can make it to this event, PLEASE GO. It's absolutely worth it! I even attended this event with an individual who is not completely crazy about watches and even that individual found it so informative and powerful - so as watch people who read WatchProSite, you'll absorb the event in its entirety.
The Exhibition features a few main areas:
1. A movie area which focuses on the history of Patek Philippe and its founding. Great video with lots of historic documents dug up by John Reardon - the famous author on books about Patek Philippe and an authority on historic Patek Philippes.
2. A room with rare handcrafts - enameling by Anita Porchet, guilloche, wood marquetry... YOU MUST SEE THIS ROOM!
3. Patek Philippe Museum Room - the brand is famous for having an extensive museum opened to the public in downtown Geneva. One of the greatest collections of watches in the world! Well, a portion of the museum has been transported to Tokyo for the Patek Philippe Exhibition! Just an amazing assortment of incredible pieces. There are also several pieces on loan from private collectors!
4. Patek Philippe Rue du Rhone Room - the Patek Philippe boutique on Rue du Rhone has been partially recreated here. You'll see the current collection and the new pieces for the Tokyo Exhibition as well!
5. The Manufacture Room - R&D and technical information abounds in this room where you get to see movement details, and diagrams that show how individual parts are made. A technical wonderland with exploded movements and models of movements that work and show you what's actually going on inside the watch! A room for our readers who love technical details!
6. Supercomplications Room - focusing on the Grandmaster Chime watches, this room shows what is possible when watchmakers DREAM BIG!
7. Master of Sound Room - this room focuses on mainly minute repeaters! Just an awesome room!
8. Watchmakers Room - four watchmakers can answer your questions about watchmaking in detail. Got a question? Here's the place to ask it!
The event is well attended by an extremely elegant crowd. While the demographic is mostly Japanese, there are many other visitors from Greater China and South East Asia. There were also some visitors from Europe and the Americas. Patek Philippe collected attendee volunteered data - mainly demographics about age. Patek Philippe has informed me and I can attest that they were pleasantly surprised to see a fair amount of young individuals were in attendance. I was actually astounded - there was a tremendous population of younger individuals. Many wearing incredible watches - even one of the youngest attendees was wearing one of the Grandmaster Chime models! It was great to see that these watches resonated with the young crowd.
Please CHIME IN (pun intended) with your thoughts!
I don't want to be too photo heavy with this post - as I know some of our readers haven't seen the exhibition yet and are scheduled to see it in the next two weeks. But here are some of my favorite pieces! Apologies for the awful photographs - these things are incredibly hard to photograph as there's a large amount of glare and there's reflective light from the skylights above.
There were a small amount of dome clocks - each one being a unique piece!
This is a piece made with wood marquetry! At first I thought it was made of enamel as the gold details looked a bit like cloisonné. But upon closer inspection I realized it was all made of wood! Just an amazing piece! My personal favorite! And I'm not usually crazy about wood marquetry pieces - but I just found this piece to be done extremely well.
A cloisonné piece featuring two individuals on a bridge with a wintry landscape. Look at the graduation in the sky. Wow!
Enameling and engraving talents are combined in this piece featuring a train and Mount Fuji!
A carp and a grasshopper in enamel coexist peacefully on this pocket watch! This artwork looks very Japanese - at first I thought it was a maki-e or chinkin style painting.
Samurai.
The noble spirit is found in this watch!
I spent over an hour in this room speaking with the technical director about the new Patek Philippe watches. Let's focus on the latest GRAND COMPLICATION from Patek Philippe, the 5308 which was launched at this Tokyo Exhibition! The 5308 features the minute repeater, a perpetual calendar, and a split seconds chronograph - making it a true Grand Complication by classic definition.
The technical director at Patek Philippe knows I like thin watches - he does too. So he showed this ALL NEW Rattrapante mechanism to me and he asked me what I thought of it. I looked at it and I said, "it's super complex, it's got double the clamps a normal rattrapante would have! This means double the cost as the clamps are the hardest part for the watchmaker to assemble and adjust. You and your development team aren't making any friends in the production hall." He laughed and he said to look a little closer. I couldn't figure it out - so he let me in on the secret. The secret is that this double clamp system reduces the hight of the system dramatically. The new system is 3 layers tall whereas the old system was 4-5 layers. This translates to a savings of up to 0.7mm in thickness! That's significant!
Oh, and this is the new WorldTime. It's got an all new date mechanism! The date goes forward and backwards depending on if your timezone change crosses the international date line! This is the first time the date has been fully integrated and synchronized to the city displayed at the top. Bravo Technical Team at Patek Philippe! Bravo!
Uhh... Does anyone want awesome wallpaper? I'd line my man-cave with this wall paper.
Advance Research anyone?
Individual parts and how they're made. Videos show the parts being processed and finished too!
Giant models showing proof of concept!
The ENORMOUS Caliber 89! Available for viewing in the Super Complications Room!
This is the Super Complications Room. Look at how young these watch collectors are! Many were incredibly young and jubilant individuals whom were truly excited about the brand. Not all guests were wearing a Patek Philippe - a large amount of Rolex and Jaeger-LeCoultre pieces (I've never seen so many JLC watches in one room in my life) worn by watch collectors of all ages! What a wonderful group of people! Including many super collectors - several of whom were extremely young. Note the ceiling and how the light comes in, it makes the room very difficult for watch photography as there is glare everywhere! Patek Philippe has also asked journalists to not disturb the guests with big equipment - each guest is a VIP! I was really surprised to see so many young people interested in watchmaking and horology!
Moses and Water automaton watch - from the Patek Philippe museum.
Vintage enamel watches from the Patek Philippe museum.
Graves' and Packard's pocket watches from the Patek Philippe museum.
Please CHIME IN (pun intended) with your thoughts! Thank you for reading. And many thanks to the incredible team at Patek Philippe for putting on an amazing exhibition.
This message has been edited by FabR on 2023-06-10 15:38:13 
