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on the pulse<br />
IT’S COMPLICATED<br />
Perpetual calendars are the connoisseurs’<br />
wristwatch, and in the age of smartphones<br />
they are trending once more<br />
By Laurie Kahle<br />
O<br />
ur Gregorian calendar is full<br />
of quirks, with some months<br />
ending at 30 days, others<br />
at 31—and then, of course,<br />
there’s February. Highly skilled watchmakers<br />
have long addressed this vexing system<br />
with a perpetual calendar complication, also<br />
known as quantième perpétuel (QP), which<br />
automatically adjusts for months of varying<br />
lengths, including leap years.<br />
Theoretically, if you kept these impressive<br />
mechanical wrist computers fully wound and<br />
optimally running, no calendar adjustment<br />
would be necessary until 1 March 2100, when<br />
Pope Gregory XIII’s idiosyncratic, 16thcentury<br />
calendar dictates we skip the leap year.<br />
The mechanism’s inherent technicity<br />
makes it a testament to the skills of any<br />
watchmaker who can master it. And, as a<br />
result, perpetual calendars have long been the<br />
provenance of the most discerning collectors.<br />
This year, several brands are offering new<br />
takes on the perpetual calendar, from<br />
classical to contemporary, elegant to sporty.<br />
A few other manufacturers have adjusted<br />
their models to make the connoisseurs’<br />
complication more broadly appealing.<br />
With a history that spans 264 years,<br />
VACHERON CONSTANTIN (vacheronconstantin.com)<br />
has more experience than<br />
46 NetJets