Introducing the Stowa Partitio Vintage Limited Black

It’s a bit of an open secret here at Worn & Wound, but we’re big fans of the Stowa Partitio. It’s a conservatively designed vintage throwback that somehow feels timeless. It’s solid, traditional watchmaking design, and if you’re the type of person who strives for a “one watch collection” (which sounds like the title of perhaps the most frightening horror movie of all time — just my opinion) you could do a lot worse than the Partitio. It looks great dressed up on a leather strap and could easily be worn in an office or out to dinner at a nice restaurant, but in a pinch can be thrown on a nylon strap for an old-school military vibe. The newest version of the Partitio, recently announced by Stowa, has a deep black dial and creamy off-white lumed Arabic numerals, and the result looks like it could have come out of a catalog from the middle of the last century.

Stowa Partitio Vintage Limited Black

• Case Material: Stainless steel 
• Dial: Black
• Dimensions: 37 x 10.8 x 46.9mm
• Crystal: Sapphire   
• Water Resistance: 5 ATM 
• Crown: Push/pull           
• Movement: ETA 2824-2
• Strap/bracelet: Leather
• Price: ~$1,056
• Expected Release: Available now; delivery June 2020
  

  ---

Fans of the Partitio need little introduction to this watch, but here’s a primer for those new to this part of the Stowa lineup. The Partitio has what can be most easily described as a traditional, straight lug, case shape. It tells you the time with three hands, no date, and very little (nothing, really) that’s at all unnecessary. The 37mm case is right in the sweet spot for this type of watch, but if you’re concerned about it wearing small, remember that the straight lugs give this watch a top to bottom measurement of 47mm in total, so it can be worn easily even by watch fans who are accustomed to modern, upsized watches.

When watch heads think of Stowa, it’s the brand’s fliegers that often come to mind, and those dials have a type of rigid simplicity that might make the crisp and precise details of the Partitio surprising to some. A close examination of the dial details reveals a well-executed minutes track providing just the right amount of color contrast against the black dial. What Stowa really nails with the Partitio, though, are the numerals and hands. The classically styled Arabics sit in perfect proportion around the dial’s perimeter, and the hands have a nearly syringe like shape, which is my personal favorite vintage touch. It’s a slightly more formal look for the Partitio compared to the white dialed variant (and our blue LE), but this is a style that I think is guaranteed to endure for as long as people want time-telling devices on their wrist.

The Partitio is powered by a top grade ETA 2824-2, and is visible through a sapphire case back. The black Partitio is a limited edition of 100, and each is individually numbered on the Stowa signed winding rotor. This kind of detail is part of what makes Stowa watches special – their ability to customize engravings on watch movements and case backs has been something of a brand hallmark for years. There’s no doubt that seeing your watch’s individual number on the movement itself is immensely more satisfying than having it on a slip of paper that gets stored away with the watch box. 

The Partitio in black is available to order now through Stowa, with delivery set to begin around June as of this writing. The suggested retail price is approximately $1,056 after currency conversion. Stowa