Girard Perregaux

A Quick Look at Girard-Perregaux’s Hawk Collection

 

Like an excited kid who can’t wait to share his thoughts, Girard-Perregaux has been busy introducing (and having ready for distribution!) new designs that it didn’t want to show at either SIHH in 2012, or wait to introduce with the novelties at Baselworld next month. In January AndrewD gave us a look at the new 1966 minute repeater with Annual Calendar and EOT: gp.watchprosite.com , a beautiful extension of its spectacular 1966 Minute Repeater from last year, and a month before that the brand reintroduced a sport line into its product portfolio, the Hawk collection.

For the past few years Girard-Perregaux has rightly focused its attention on Haute Horlogerie timepieces and the Vintage 1945 and 1966 collections of dress watches. But for a brand that has a long history of making great sport watches, having introduced the Sea Hawk in the 1940’s, and the Laureato in the 1970’s, it was time to bring back a true sport watch into the family. The Hawk collection consists of two models, the Sea Hawk, and the Chrono Hawk.

The Sea Hawk is a serious diving watch. The stainless steel case is a sizable 44 mm in diameter, though it seems even larger due to the massive lugs. While many luxury sport watches will incorporate high polish finishes into their dive watches (Rolex Sea-Dweller Deepsea, Omega Planet Ocean), Girard-Perregaux has chosen a more austere look consisting entirely of satin finishes. A touch of luxury comes from the well defined angles of the case, and the way the grain of the satin finishes work either together or in counterpoint.

A hint of GP’s Laureato comes through with the octagonal black rubber ring that fits between the case and the rotating bezel.

The watch is designed to withstand 1000 meters of water resistance, and has a helium escape valve for those few who do saturation diving. The caseback is necessarily solid , though with an interested engraving.


The dial is designed first and foremost for supremely easy time reading, with oversized luminous hands and markers, the latter of which provide a lot of depth to the dial. The dial has an elongated honeycomb texture that recalls Girard-Perregaux’s original bridge for the Three Bridge Tourbillon.


The base movement is Girard-Perregaux’s in-house calibre 3300, which beats at 28,800 vibrations per hour. The crown, rotated down between 4 o’clcock and 5 o’clock for greater comfort on the wrist, forces the subseconds dial line up opposite it between 10 o’clcock  and 11 o’clcock. The power reserve is an arc set at 6, and the date is between 1 o’clcock and 2 o’clcock. It is a well balanced dial, and the orange elements on the dial make it very interesting.

As nice as the Sea Hawk is, my money would go toward the Chrono Hawk, as I really like the symmetry on of the dial, and the subtler use of orange for the chronograph and running seconds hands.

The case dimensions are the same as with the Sea Hawk, but the water resistance is dialed back to 100 meters. One advantage is that the case back can have a sapphire crystal to allow for viewing the calibre 3300, and its rotor shaped like a bird in flight. The chronograph is a module on top of the base movement.

The curvature of the case, and the downward slope of the strap of the Hawk make for a comfortable fit on the wrist.

The straps are well designed with a depth of their own. While rubber straps were on these two timepieces, leather straps, both black and tan, with white contrasting stitching, are also available.

I liked the new Hawk collection of watches when I first saw them in December in the press releases, and now having seen and handled them in person, my infatuation has only grown. Check them out and let us know what you think!

Bill

 

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To leave comments, please go to Bill's original post in GP forum, gp.watchprosite.com