What do film director Quentin Tarantino, basketball legend Kobe Bryant and, um, Queen Victoria have in common? All of them have, at one point or other, owned a coveted Girard-Perregaux timepiece.
The haute horologists have been a byword for Swiss excellence since they were founded in the remote Jura mountains in the late 18th century, with Monsieur Constant Girard going on to produce the first ever commercial order for wristwatches. Even within the rarefied world of Swiss watch-making, theirs is a backstory built on true artisanry, keeping production in-house and passing down closely-guarded craftsman skills through the generations.
As such, Girard-Perregaux (the latter name for Constant’s horologist wife, Marie Perregaux, who hailed from a noted watch-making lineage) are not the types for brash marketing or clout-chasing collaborations. So the new Laureato Chronograph Aston Martin Edition is notable in its arrival; two heritage heavyweights devoted to precision engineering and elegant aesthetics coming together to create something worthy of both names.
The Laureato itself debuted in 1975 as a luxury sports watch conceived by Milanese architect Adolfo Natalini, and the first Swiss model to feature a quartz-powered movement. Its name derived from the latin laureātus to mean ‘crowned with laurels’ (also the Italian translation for The Graduate, a box office hit a few years earlier). The Aston Martin partnership began in 2021 and previously delivered a ceramic racing green version, but this latest edition is more subtle in its greenish finish, featuring an iridescent dial coloured, in groundbreaking fashion with 15 ultra-fine layers of automotive paint.
Beneath the hood are ergonomic touches worthy of a supercar — light and strong titanium construction, brushed and polished surfaces, engraved gilded text. Driving things is the Swiss-made GP03300 calibre, the self-winding workings of which you can spy through a sapphire caseback etched with the iconic Aston Martin winged logo.
It’s horology with horsepower, and car-lovers and watch-lovers alike should head to a Bucherer store to see how it handles. We find it pairs particularly well with some driving gloves…
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