The Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante, introduced 2022, is Parmigiani's extremely understated take on the travel watch. Despite sharing its name, synonymous with split seconds, the rattrapante mechanism is here applied to a dual time (or 'Travel Time' to use Patek Philippe parlance). You'd hardly know this is a travel watch unless you study it closely, the pushers are so cohesive with the case design. This GMT Rattrapante completely maintains the elegance of classic Parmigiani and, while taking on a more practical complication, choses a deliberately refined rather than utilitarian aesthetic.
The hour hand has another hidden beneath it in daily life. As soon as you travel, the case side pusher integrated into the lug profile near 8 advances the steel hour hand, leaving behind a lower pink gold 'home' time hand. Upon return, the crown pusher reunites both hour hands to one shared time zone. Both are skeletonized in the same shape such that one disappears into the other. Rattrapante in French means to reunite, where normally the name references two seconds hands here it references two hour hands reuniting after travel.
The complication is met by an equally considered design. This dial is 'Milano' blue, a darker Royal blue, with a very fine Grain d'Orge hand guilloché. The unmoving 'home' time hand is executed in pink gold, matched by the crown pusher. The bezel is platinum with the extremely fine knurling pattern often associated with Parmigiani's earlier work. The case is 40mm but quite low at 10.4mm thin with an aggressive lug wrap to help it wrap. On wrist it has presence, but doesn't shout. The design walks a balance between both Parmigiani's traditional reserved character and refined, modern edge with the integrated detailing. We find the pusher integration at 8 particularly clever, not only because it blends with the lugs it's also where your thumb naturally rests.
That 10mm thinness is possible due to a micro-rotor PF051 manufacture calibre, comprised of 207 components. The calibre is hand decorated with Côtes de Genève, perlage, anglage, and a Grain d'Orge guilloché rotor to match the dial. The 4.9mm thin calibre isn't really a GMT or a rattrapante in the traditional sense of either word, but something new.
In the often cluttered space of integrated steel sport watches, the Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante does actually feel like something new. It's abandoned all pretense of sport for elegance, and while it's just as capable of timing New York and London simultaneously as a GMT-Master II, it does so with minimal distraction from its completely composed elegance. This is the grace afforded by independence on full display, Parmigiani didn't chase trends here. They took their time and interpreted the category through a lens. Refined practicality, integrated.
