Girard-Perregaux just introduced the Laureato Fifty Tourbillon Micro-Rotor 39mm, and it is the most complicated version of the Laureato Fifty released so far. The watch runs on a new in-house caliber, the GP8410, an automatic tourbillon built around a platinum and pink gold micro-rotor shaped like the brand’s signature arrow motif.
The 39mm steel case measures just 10mm thick, which is pretty darn slim for a watch carrying this level of complication. It comes in two dial options: a translucent blue Grand Feu enamel dial on a white gold base, or an 18K solid gold dial in a rose tone, both finished with the brand’s “Clous de Paris” hobnail pattern.
White gold hands and indexes carry blue luminescent material, and a sapphire caseback shows off the movement, including two white gold bridges decorated in the same Clous de Paris pattern as the dial. The movement runs a 72-hour power reserve, and the watch comes on an integrated steel bracelet with a 4mm fine-adjustment clasp.
Girard-Perregaux is on a tear
Everything about this piece is pulled from somewhere specific in Girard-Perregaux’s archive. The arrow-shaped Bridges date back to 1867, when Constant Girard introduced them as one of the first true design signatures in watchmaking.
The lyre-shaped tourbillon cage is a nineteenth-century holdover, too, turning the regulating mechanism into something worth looking at. The Grand Feu enamel technique traces back even further, to the 1790s. And the Laureato’s octagonal-bezel architecture itself, introduced in 1975, is the fifth signature the whole watch is built around.
That’s a lot of history to cram into one 39mm case! Many watchmakers lean on one archival cue at a time — a dial pattern here, a case shape there — and it’s hard to blame them for not wanting to overextend. Girard-Perregaux is going in the opposite, maximalist direction by stacking four distinct, centuries-old techniques into a single new movement and calling it a cohesive statement.
It’s also the fourth all-new Manufacture caliber the brand has released in the past twelve months, following the GP4800, GP9620, and GP9530, which is a fast pace of movement development for a brand this size.
Whether all this fervor reads as impressive or excessive probably depends on how much you care about horological history and experimentation. But for anyone building out a serious luxury watch collection, this is the kind of piece that stands out.
Where to buy it
The Girard-Perregaux Laureato Fifty Tourbillon Micro-Rotor 39mm is available starting September 2 at Girard-Perregaux boutiques and authorized retailers, priced from $95,600 for the blue enamel dial to $100,000 for the solid gold version.
