The first time I visited the manufacturing centers of Parmigiani Fleurier was back in 2009, and, while I knew a little bit about the company, the visit was something of a revelation. It was easy back in those days to think of Parmigiani as a relatively small-batch undertaking, even as something of an underdog, and it occupied a very specific niche in the minds of American watch enthusiasts. The watches were certainly respected for the quality of their movements and the idiosyncratic biomorphism of their designs, but you never got the feeling that the manufacture was going to rise to the level of a more widely recognized luxury brand. Of course, the failure to do that isn’t a failure at all unless that’s the target you’re shooting for, which is why I got home from the visit more confused than ever. UK cheap replica Parmigiani Fleurier watches wasn’t, and isn’t, a small undertaking; the company and its satellites include an enormous factory in Fleurier (Manufacture Vaucher, in which Hermès, which also makes Parmigiani’s straps, owns a 25% stake) as well as facilities like the casemaking company Les Artisans Boitiers, the component and balance spring maker Atokalpa, and on and on.

These other companies aren’t owned by Parmigiani per se; rather, Parmigiani, as well as the other components manufacturers we visited were (and are) part of a portfolio of horological firms owned by the Sandoz Family Foundation, which was founded in 1964 by Édouard-Marcel Sandoz, the son of one of the co-founders of Sandoz Pharmaceuticals (among the company’s more interesting achievements was the discovery of the psychotropic properties of LSD). The Foundation has, as you might expect, significant capital resources and its brief was and is to encourage entrepreneurship by providing startup funding, and promoting job creation, which it undoubtedly has done in horology. Best fake watches Parmigiani Fleurier online was launched in 1996, by Michel Parmigiani and with the support of the Sandoz Family Foundation.

With all these resources at its disposal it completely mystified me as to why the company was as relatively unknown in the USA as it was in 2009. Even today, for most watch enthusiasts it’s oddly underexposed.

As a case in point, let’s take a look at the Tonda 1950 Meteorite Abyss Blue. The sell here, at least initially, is the extremely deep blue dial, which depending on how the light hits it can look either almost black and totally featureless or a radiant cerulean with subtle, but unmistakeable and interestingly varied, cross-hatching on the dial that comes from the crystal structure of the meteorite from which the dial’s made. The dial starts with a thin cross-section of an actual meteorite, which is then treated in a series of acid baths to accentuate the textures of its crystalline structure. Finally, the dial is given a galvanic surface coating, resulting in the very saturated blue color you see here.

The Tonda case, with its distinctive lugs, is one of two most recognizable in Parmigiani’s portfolio, along with the tonneau-shaped Kalpa. The Tonda is the most conservative case shape offered by Parmigiani, but it does have the same teardrop-profile lugs the Kalpa has and that’s what makes it identifiable at a distance as a cheap replica Parmigiani Fleurier watches UK design.

Now, you might come for the dial, but if you’re a dyed-in-the-wool movement geek you’ll stay for the caliber PF701.

The PF701 is a quite lovely movement, and quite a flat one at 2.6mm; for comparison, Piaget’s 1200P micro-rotor movement is 2.35mm thick. The overall construction of the movement is fairly typical for a micro-rotor caliber, in which layout constraints are imposed by the need to find room, more or less on the same level, for the rotor, automatic winding system, barrel, and going train. Below we can see the rotor itself, and, going counterclockwise, the bridge for the automatic winding train, the bridge for the mainspring barrel and center wheel, and the three-lobed bridge for the third wheel, fourth wheel, and escape wheel. The balance is supported by a balance cock (as opposed to a balance bridge) and is freesprung (that is, there’s no regulator index). The balance spring is flat, with a conventional outer terminal dogleg; generally, in extra-flat movements, an overcoil balance spring is not used as it adds height. The general level of finish seems quite good. There aren’t any sharp inner corners to be seen here, but then again, there aren’t any in the Piaget 1200P or Patek 240 either, so you can’t knock Parmigiani for that. At least not relative to its competition.

So here we have a very attractive, very traditionally sized (39mm x 7.97mm) extra-flat dress watch, with an interesting and well-made movement, a distinctive case, and a very nice bit of added value in the unusual dial, all at a price ($20,500) that puts it reasonably in competition with comparable watches from other haute horlogerie manufacturers. Price-wise the only major gotcha for luxury fake Parmigiani Fleurier watches UK that I can think of here is the new Lange Saxonia Thin 37mm at $14,800. However, the Lange is not self-winding (though it is more elaborately finished than virtually any other watch from any other manufacturer at that price point) and as well, 37mm is slightly on the small side for some contemporary tastes. (And, lest we forget, the 40mm version of the Saxonia Thin is about $10,000 more expensive). Moreover, this is not an especially unusual watch qualitatively for Parmigiani; since the company was founded they have made many equally, if not more, beautiful and technically interesting watches.

Why, then, does a relative technical powerhouse brand that has its own distinctive aesthetic language, and which has considerable financial resources at its disposal, continue to be something of, well, not exactly a second-class citizen, but certainly something of an afterthought for so many enthusiasts?

Several years ago, when I was still U.S. Editor-in-Chief of Revolution Magazine, we happened to do an interview with Jean-Claude Biver, who, whatever else you may think of his influence over the years on watch design, is generally acknowledged to be a guy who knows something about marketing and selling watches. At one point he was asked by Revolution’s founder Wei Koh why he thought a certain brand was underperforming. He became more animated (more animated than usual for Biver, which is saying something) and he said, “Because they have no ICON!” He leaned forward and began banging the tip of his index finger on the table, as if he meant to drill straight through to China, perhaps to assure the world’s largest emerging market for watches of the seriousness of his commitment to horology. “You need an ICON,” he barked. “ICON. ICON. ICON. ICON.” (He said this with the exasperated air of a man who is frequently forced to repeat the obvious to those whom he suspects aren’t paying attention).

The point was emphatically made, but well taken, and it is instructive when considering sale replica Parmigiani Fleurier watches. There is much traditional watchmaking at Parmigiani, but the company itself is still quite young after all, and it simply takes a great deal of time to build the sort of heritage that many of us expect (wittingly or not) to find backing up brands that practice traditional watchmaking. It also can take some time to find a model that really rises to the status of an icon for a company, and you can, depending on the circumstances, do quite well without one. No one would dispute that the Royal Oak is iconic for Audemars Piguet, but the company managed to survive without it for 97 years (though there is some question how much longer they would have survived without it).

So is Parmigiani Fleurier necessarily doing anything wrong? On the level of offering products qualitatively competitive with other brands at its price level, the answer is, generally, no. There are distinctive designs, and a really impressive portfolio of haute horlogerie in-house movements that represent a huge capital investment. On another level, it’s hard to avoid feeling the company could do more to simply get its watches out there a bit more amongst exactly the individuals and communities best equipped. and naturally inclined, to appreciate them. The company’s problem, to the extent that it has one, is a branding problem, not a quality problem, and while many watch companies are deficient either in branding activities or product quality, I would be willing to bet fifty thousand chronometers that most of us would rather have the quality than the messaging, if forced to choose.

However, it’s also true that a little consistency in awareness-building goes a long way, and I can’t help but hope that Parmigiani will do more in the future to remind its clients, both present and future, that it exists as an interesting alternative to the usual suspects. The Tonda 1950 Special Edition Meteorite Abyss Blue, in the meantime, is an attractive and elegant watch with a lot of personality. Let’s hope it and its kin get the attention from enthusiasts, and from Parmigiani itself, necessary to maintain some much-needed and welcome diversity in the horological ecosystem.

So is Parmigiani Fleurier necessarily doing anything wrong? On the level of offering products qualitatively competitive with other brands at its price level, the answer is, generally, no. There are distinctive designs, and a really impressive portfolio of haute horlogerie in-house movements that represent a huge capital investment. On another level, it’s hard to avoid feeling the company could do more to simply get its watches out there a bit more amongst exactly the individuals and communities best equipped. and naturally inclined, to appreciate them. The company’s problem, to the extent that it has one, is a branding problem, not a quality problem, and while many watch companies are deficient either in branding activities or product quality, I would be willing to bet fifty thousand chronometers that most of us would rather have the quality than the messaging, if forced to choose.

However, it’s also true that a little consistency in awareness-building goes a long way, and I can’t help but hope that Parmigiani will do more in the future to remind its clients, both present and future, that it exists as an interesting alternative to the usual suspects. The Tonda 1950 Special Edition Meteorite Abyss Blue, in the meantime, is an attractive and elegant watch with a lot of personality. Let’s hope it and its kin get the attention from enthusiasts, and from Parmigiani itself, necessary to maintain some much-needed and welcome diversity in the horological ecosystem.