INTRODUCING: The Girard Perregaux Aston Martin Laureato Chronograph has a dial that dazzles

It’s one thing to salivate over pictures and Instagram posts, but hands up who remembers the first time they were fortunate enough to set eyes on a Laureato in real life? I do, and it was love at first sight. The month was January, the year was 2017, the time zone was Swiss and the size was 41mm, in all its clous de Paris dial glory. While the Laureato 2016 was certainly the moment Girard Perregaux’s hero watch became a personal favourite – every iteration pulling on my heartstrings like a new Adele song – that 225th anniversary piece arguably put the brand back on everyone’s horological map and GP has been going from strength to strength since Patrick Pruniaux took the helm in 2018.

And thanks to an adrenaline-fuelled, Formula 1-affiliated partnership with Aston Martin, 2021 has been a big year for GP, boasting its most talked-about releases in a while.

In June, the Three Flying Bridges tourbillon provided the first love child from the collaboration and six months later, as Time + Tide’s Fergus Nash rightly predicted, here’s the special-edition Laureato in British Racing Green everyone was hoping would be born out of this special partnership between the two heritage-focused luxury names.

Whether or not its name is inspired from Dustin Hoffman’s seminal performance in The Graduate (“Laureato” means graduate in Italian and came out in 1967, eight years before GP debuted its OG Laureato), one thing is certain: the Laureato has duly graduated with first class honours and aplomb. At 42mm in diameter, the latest, racy iteration is yet another beauty to enter the steel sports watch scene. First things first, in the year of the green dial look at that green dial – in Aston Martin green no less. Achieved by seven layers of paint, it’s made to feel racier still with the cross-hatching, diamond-like pattern, which car nerds might notice appeared on the carmaker’s logo way back in the 1920s. (Kudos to anyone who registered that likeness.)

At the watch’s launch held at Knightbridge’s Watches of Switzerland store in London, while Aston Martin’s chief creative officer Marek Reichman and Prunaiux joked that Aston Martin is a mere baby in comparison to Girard Perregaux (the former only 108 to GP’s wise old 230 years), Reichman was quick to flag that rarity and exclusivity are two design goals the brand sets about achieving with anything it does.

We can all agree that the Laureato Chronograph Aston Martin stainless-steel edition ticks both boxes as it’s limited to 188 pieces, it’s balanced and crisp to look at and perhaps most notably, for the first-time ever, a Laureato with an open caseback to showcase the watch’s engine working. After being dazzled by the purity of the dial, its three sundials and date window in-between four and five o’clock, flipping the watch over and peering through sapphire crystal to marvel at the hypnotic sight of GP’s calibre GP03300-0141 automatic manufacture movement ticking along had me feeling the Laureato love, once again. 

The Girard Perregaux Laureato Chronograph Aston Martin Edition is limited to 188 pieces, which are not numbered. GBP £14,000 / USD $18,100