s sophisticated and highfalutin as Patek Philippe is, its designers are still drawn to 2000s nostalgia. What else could explain the shutter shades on the latest Cubitus release at this year’s Watches & Wonders? It’s like it’s 2008 all over again and the “voice of a generation” still went by Kanye West. The first Grand Complication in the Cubitus line, the Perpetual Calendar Skeleton Reference 5840P-001 features the horizontal stripes found on the dials of all Cubitus models, only this time paired with the skeletonized treatment, with blue PVD-coated lines peeking from behind perpetual calendar and moonphase registers. Demonstrating Patek’s mastery of calendar complications, it promises greater releases and complications for the Cubitus line.
The perpetual calendar fits within the Cubitus’s existing case dimensions, at 45mm, with a small 0.4mm increase in height to 10mm. Patek Philippe opted for 950 platinum to showcase the Cubitus’s Grand Complication, and it provides a brushed-finish frame for the open-work dial and its parallel blue lines. Three balanced registers interrupt the lines, displaying the perpetual calendar month, date, and day of the week. In the truest definition of a perpetual calendar, Patek Philippe took in mind leap years and the lengths of months, allowing the calendar mechanism to run all year without skipping a beat. Angled baton indices surround the edge of the dial in 18 ct white gold and filled with white Superluminova lume.
This is the first non-limited, non-anniversary Patek Philippe model in the regular collection to use a large moon display. Patek Philippe eschewed the moon phase tradition where two successive moons are displayed on a single disk, instead opting for one detailed moon against a background of stars. The moon appears just once a month, which necessitated changes to the gear train for a slower rotating disk — completing one rotation every 29.53 days for a lunar cycle. The last time Patek Philippe used such a large-moon mechanism was when it celebrated its 175th anniversary in 2014 with the World Time Moon, a pair of moonphase watches also known as References 5575G and 7175R.
To fit the square dimensions of the Cubitus, Patek Philippe created an evolution of the caliber 240 Q, which forms the basis of most of its perpetual calendars (such as last year’s Twenty-4 7340/1R Perpetual Calendar). Comprised of 313 total components, this new Caliber 28-28 Q SQU is powered by a micro-rotor plated in 22 ct gold, offers a power reserve of 48 hours, and beats at 21,600 vph. While it peeks slyly through the blue bars of the dial up front, the real showstopping look is through the clear sapphire caseback: its bridges are cut in the same parallel stripes, allowing an even bigger glimpse of the movement’s internal features (such as its Gyromax balance). Blue is a welcome pop of color against the platinum underpinnings, both in the form of wide, blued screws and the color of the Calatrava Cross engraved on the micro-rotor.
Patek Philippe, likely the most traditional watchmaker in all of haute horology, rarely does an open-worked skeleton dial, and certainly not one as bold as this. As if the Cubitus wasn’t contentious enough when it debuted in 2024: as Patek Philippe’s first new line in 25 years, or since the days of LMFAO and party rocking. This Perpetual Calendar signifies that Patek Philippe is aiming to grow the line with its greatest complications, even taking on the challenge of creating and modifying movements to adapt to the Cubitus’s blocky challenges. (some of the earliest Cubitus models had regular round movements inside their cases, which made the Cubitus even more polarizing.) The Perpetual Calendar Skeleton Reference 5840P-001 — or as it’s known around the ABTW office, “Patty P Cuby Skelly” — is priced at 150,000 CHF and is available now, without any limited-edition nonsense. For more information, please visit the Patek Philippe website.
