First of all, let me pay Jerome my compliments for his brilliant report. Even if I’m far from having the right skills to write something after such a comprehensive article, I’d like to express my personal point of view.
Let’s start from expressing my feelings in a sentence: even if the 5270 isn’t a timepiece to dream for (besides, the PP collection has already plenty of dream-watch), Mr. Stern have done the right thing giving the fifth son of the chrono/qp dynasty a lot of subtle innovations although fully respecting the important heritage.
Before approaching the dial design choices that strike me the most, I have to say that the 5270’s case is - more than everything else – the thing that qualifies this timepiece as a true Patek Philippe. In my opinion, no one in the current horological business put the same care and art in watch cases design and the 5270 keeps up. The concave bezel concurs to the 5270 visual lightness and enhances its thinness; thanks to this solution, despite the increased dimension up to 41 mm., the watch keeps understated, while on the wrist it should have a quite substantial presence. Also the thin strap contributes to the overall aesthetical lightness. The crown is a very interesting innovation; I haven’t seen anything like that in the past PP production: I interpret this seemingly minor novelty as the sign of the PP willingness to modernize itself. It seems that, unlike the 5970 case, its left part haven’t the “bulge”, or rather the case is perfectly round. Last but not the least, the sculptured lugs: what can say??? I think they’re like the signature of a great artist on his painting.
The 5270’s face has a lot of properties. The first characteristic that I noticed is its extreme legibility, primarily thanks to the use of apertures for leap year and day/night indicator; talking of apertures, I’d like to underline that the round ones were used for the first time on the Ref.3450, while the rounded ones for day and month are an absolute première and I find their style very contemporary. I’ve appreciated the removal of the tachymeter: I think it’s useless and out of place in such an important watch. I’ve found really well chosen the markers dimensions: the longer ones strongly reduce the lack of aesthetical balance due to the subdials offset displacement; the shorter ones are symmetrical and without any cut-out, so they give balance and a certain “rhythm” to the lower part of the dial. I’ve mixed feelings on the black oxidized finish used for markers and hands: I appreciate their visibility and “modernity”, but I find that they’re too serious, too grave, too technical.
That’s all, thank you for reading.
Ciao!