Opinion: Patek Philippe, the Cubitus, and Elitism in Modern Watchmaking

Last month, Patek Philippe launched their first new watch collection in decades: the Cubitus. It was met with, as you’ve surely seen by now, a chorus of widespread skepticism and bewilderment. Ostensibly a replacement for the now discontinued stainless steel Nautilus, the Cubitus borrows the bracelet and dial treatment from that watch, and makes the case square. The consensus seems to be that they turned one of the most elegant luxury sports watches ever made into something ungainly, and they didn’t even take the time to do it in a thoughtful way. Words like “lazy” and “ugly” fill out the diatribes from commenters who disapprove. 

For me and the rest of the team at Worn & Wound, new releases from Patek Philippe are something of a spectator sport. I can’t speak for all of my colleagues, but feelings about the brand range from lukewarm appreciation for watches that are objectively well made and designed, to a more straight up boredom (that’s me), to some version of the “I don’t think of you at all” Mad Men meme (also me). It’s fair to say, though, that none of us are die hard Patek fans in the same way, for instance, that we follow new releases from brands like, I dunno, Grand Seiko, Christopher Ward, Armin Strom, Garrick, Tudor, and the like. The watches we get excited about span a huge range of accessibility both in terms of price and actual availability. But a good watch is a good watch. 

This is all to say, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to readers that we haven’t covered the Cubitus in a meaningful way to this point. We didn’t get invited to the big launch event in Munich (to be fair, only six American members of the watch media were), and we didn’t even get a press release about the new collection. C’est la vie, I guess. 

Shortly after the Cubitus was publicly unveiled, Patek Philippe’s director, Thierry Stern, was quoted, in response to some of the criticism of the new collection, as saying “the haters are mostly people who have never had a Patek, and never will,” a self-aggrandizing and elitist barb that lit up social media for a day or two with white hot reactions from many in the community, including, it must be said, Patek Philippe owners and collectors calling Stern out for the outright snobbery on display. 

Stern, in that quote and others attributed to him over the years in which he boasts about himself and the brand in a particularly elitist way, is saying the quiet part out loud. It’s not complicated: like all luxury brands, Patek Philippe seeks a certain type of client that reinforces the idea that underlines their own image. In Patek’s case, it’s one of exclusivity that’s literally passed down through the generations. It’s the opposite of marketing to appeal to a customer’s aspirations, the bread and butter of the luxury world, whether we’re talking handbags, cars, or watches. It’s an appeal to an existing elevated social status. Their famous print ads tell us that you never really own a Patek Philippe, you merely look after it for future generations. Buried in that messaging is the recognition, from Stern, your authorized dealer, and the voice inside your head, that you, probably a poor person, can’t own a Patek Philippe.

Look, there are a lot of things that most normal people, and even most people who would be classified by some metric as “wealthy,” can’t own, things that are simply beyond their means. When you work in a luxury industry, you see this dynamic play out all the time, and you begin to appreciate (or not appreciate) these things simply as objects, and not as watches (or cars, or real estate, or whatever) that you’d ever actually consider owning. I think, and write, about this dynamic a lot. I was roasted in the comments recently when I said we should all just learn to appreciate things like the Moser x Studio Underd0g collaboration from afar, and not get all worked up about a watch we can’t have, and I stand by that. 

But I do think it’s worth getting worked up about elitism, and being exclusionary to an almost malevolent degree. Elitism is not, to be clear, making and selling an expensive watch that most people can’t buy. Elitism is rubbing our noses in it, which is what Stern seems happy to do. 

That brings us to the latest chapter in the Cubitus Saga, which has to be among the most disastrous rollouts of a luxury watch since Audemars Piguet launched the Code 11.59, a line that, to their credit, has been turned around dramatically in a relatively short span of time. Last week, the collective watch internet lost its mind when Patek Philippe debuted an Instagram Reel to promote the Cubitus. You can watch it for yourself, but let me try to explain it here in words. I’ve watched it maybe 100 times and it’s burned into my brain A Clockwork Orange style. 

Using special effects that might as well have been made on a PC running Windows 95, the camera zooms into a scene of 1%ers enjoying a rooftop party on a NYC skyscraper. We learn through first person narration that this party is for a well coiffed gentleman of undetermined age. If I had to guess, he’s an elder-millennial, like me. Clearly he’s accomplished something significant. 

 

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“As I reach a milestone in my life,” he says, “I’m grateful to all those around me who have shared my journey. I’m humbled by my good fortune, yet well aware that I still have much to learn, and that if I stay true to myself and follow my instincts, my legacy will be looked on kindly by my friends, my family, and hopefully generations to come.” Our hero has been making his way through the party, greeting those around him warmly. Guests of this party are clearly in awe of this young man. As his narration ends, he is approached by a woman, ostensibly his spouse, who presents him with a Patek Philippe box holding the $88,378 platinum Cubitus with a new instantaneous grand date mechanism and moon phase. A feeling of great satisfaction washes over us all, and Patek’s famous tagline appears: “You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation.” 

The advertisement is, on its face, tone deaf. At a time at which the financial future of many is uncertain, here’s an ad that instead of telling us anything about a watch, tells us everything about what Patek sees when the brand looks at itself in the mirror. It’s fundamentally self-centered, following his journey which apparently is a result of little more than good fortune, which could mean inherited wealth or a big Crypto payday, old money or new. Words like “legacy” imply something is pre-determined about this guy’s journey, anyway. 

The advertisement accomplishes the strange trick of making us see the classic Patek print ads in a new light. Those advertisements are effective because there’s a relentless clarity to them, and while they are steeped in an assumption of great wealth, they’re also about the product, and underscore the romantic notion of a great Swiss watch lasting not just your lifetime, but the lifetime of your offspring. The new Instagram reel, though, could be viewed as a prequel to those print ads. This is how that guy actually acquired his Patek Philippe. Turns out, he’s just a rich kid on some rooftop, ruminating on his own exceptionalism. 

This is apparently Patek’s gambit at attracting new, younger clients, a stated goal of the Cubitus, positioned as it is as the new entry level, sporty watch in the brand’s catalog. The thinking from Patek seems to be that by casting an actor under 50 for their advertisement, young wealth will flock to the brand. Not just that, but they’ll flock to the brand’s entry level steel sports model, specifically. And not just that, but they’ll be totally OK with the watch itself being absolutely ghastly, because it’s a Patek, after all. That’s not even really a judgment about this watch in particular (I don’t think it’s ghastly exactly) but the point is that it could look like anything, because these dumb kids just want an easily recognizable bauble with the brand’s name on the dial. 

But there’s ample evidence that young people are seeing this and being turned off entirely not just by the watch, but by the brand writ large. I shared the Reel to my own Instagram Story with what I have to admit was a characteristically snarky comment, and received dozens of replies that confirm the campaign is not winning many over. Those comments ranged from “vomit” emojis, to comparisons of the footage with what you’d see from a Kickstarter brand hoping to get funded, to profanity filled screeds about how gross it all is. 

I’m sure that Patek will not have any real trouble selling the Cubitus, but their image with a younger clientele is not as safe. I don’t know many people my own age who aspire to own Patek Philippe. They are seen as the old guard, and young people (always) will want what’s new, different, and edgy. 

They’re also, in my experience, ruthless about where they spend their money. I’m not in a position to buy a watch at this price point, but I know collectors my age who are, and they’re choosing not to line Thierry Stern’s already flush pockets. Young collectors, myself included, want to support brands and creators they believe in, and actually like. This is something we see transpire at literally every Windup Watch Fair: enthusiasts meet the team behind a brand, form a personal connection, and want to buy into not just the watch, but that brand’s vision of watch collecting or watchmaking itself. It happens with microbrands priced in the hundreds of dollars, top-tier indies, and everywhere in between. 

Watch collectors, more than ever, are spoiled for choice, so it matters in a very real way how all of us choose to spend our hard earned money on things we absolutely do not need. Personally, I believe in rewarding brands who not only make watches I want to wear, but take their customers seriously, don’t talk down to them, and welcome new collectors into the fold with open arms. We try to highlight those brands on Worn & Wound every chance we get, and we collectively hope that, one day, perhaps thanks to an appeal to a younger client that is logical and coherent, Patek Philippe might be among them.