Master watchmaker Michel Parmigiani turned 70 years old in 2020, looking back on a lifetime of
impactful contributions to modern horology. Parmigiani Fleurier, the brand he
founded in 1996, commemorates this milestone with the introduction of the Toric Heritage, a
limited-edition timepiece which takes its inspiration from the very first wristwatch that Michel Parmigiani
ever designed.
T
he Toric is the very first wristwatch case designed by Michel Parmigiani and pays homage to the
essence of watchmaking in its purest form: exceptional engineering; a movement, developed, produced
and decorated with the greatest care to create the perfect celebration of time. Appropriately, the
timepiece chosen to commemorate Michel Parmigiani’s milestone 70th birthday hails from that family, which was
revived and elegantly redesigned in 2017.
“When I was little, my father would
say to me: “If you learn to look, art
will reveal itself”. The expression
has always stayed with me. Art is
everywhere around us in nature. It
is there in the tiniest of details and
in the magnificent structures built
by our ancestors.”
Michel Parmigiani
When Michel Parmigiani designs a watch, he starts with the profile. By doing this, the essential design
elements of the brand are respected in a harmonious way and each new watch respects, honors and
perpetuates the brand identity. The harmonious curves of the Toric Heritage case, as all other
Parmigiani Fleurier timepieces, are inspired by the Golden Ratio and its links to the famous Fibonacci
sequence. Mysteriously harmonious as well as rigorously mathematical, the Golden Ratio is often seen
in art such as Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Mondrian’s Composition in Red, Yellow, and Blue, and in
iconic architecture such as Egypt’s Great Pyramids.
Its case, in polished steel, takes its inspiration from ancient Greek columns and from a pointed shell
Michel found on a beach in Malaysia, with hand-done knurling and doubly alternating gadroons
embellishing its curved contours, creating an optical illusion of great delicacy. Every aspect of the
watch design is rooted in this ancient rule- the relationship between the hands, the fluted angles in the
crown, the length to width ratios, the rate of curvature of the lugs as they taper away from the case,
even the case-back design and placement of the sapphire crystal.
Also taking inspiration from his lifetime
devotion to architectural principles is the
blue dial, adorned with a radiating Grain
d’Orge guilloché. This organic pattern,
derived from the sprouting of barley, is
inspired by one of the many examples of the
presence in the natural world of the
Fibonacci sequence, the scientific and
mathematical principle devised by Italian
Leonardo Fibonacci, which maintains
elegant balance in nature much as the
Golden Ratio determines the proportions of
everything from atoms to celestial bodies.
Displaying the time on the vibrant dial are
the open-worked javelin hands that are
emblematic of the Toric collection and
inspired by the Greek goddess Athena’s spear. The applied hour numerals, in a lilting, graceful Hindu-
Arabic font, are 18k white gold and coated in rhodium. The date is indicated in a curved aperture at 6
o’clock. History, art and nature permeate this Toric Heritage timepiece.
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