The quiet luxury trend is very much alive. The latest category to embrace understated designs — after handbags, ready-to-wear and, most recently, sneakers — is the luxury watch industry.
It has been an exciting year of timepiece auctions, but stealing the auction show mid-2023 is the ‘Imperial Patek Philippe,’ which was sold for HK$52 million (US$6.6 million) by Phillips Hong Kong — making history as the most expensive timepiece to sell at auction so far, in 2023.
In just six minutes of bidding over the phone, the timepiece which was previously owned by the Last Emperor of the Qing Dynasty. was officially sold to an Asian collector residing locally in Hong Kong.
According to Thomas Perazzi, the Head of Watches, Asia at Phillips, this thematic auction (The Imperial Patek Philippe Sale) set three major records: “…the highest result for any Patek Philippe reference 96 ever sold, a record of any wristwatch previously owned by Emperors that has been auctioned, and the most valuable lot ever sold by Phillips Watches in Asia.”