If Quiet Luxury Had a Pulse, It’d Tick Like This

If you type “The Row bag” or “Loro Piana loafers” into TikTok, your feed fills with videos explaining the language of quiet luxury. It’s a digital shorthand for wealth without logos, a look the Roy family on Succession seemed to crystallize.

But Parmigiani Fleurier sits somewhere far quieter than that. It’s kind of refinement doesn’t play for the algorithm.

Founded in 1996 by Michel Parmigiani, the Swiss brand has always been more about mastery than marketing. When Guido Terreni took over as CEO in 2021, he found a company with remarkable heritage but little clarity. 

His task was to rebuild identity, not by chasing attention, but by stripping away everything unnecessary. “Luxury is a cultural exercise before it’s a commercial one,” he said.

“It’s about emotion that connects the values of the customer with the values of the brand.”

Terreni calls Parmigiani’s approach “private luxury.” It’s a mindset for people who don’t need their taste validated.

They buy watches because they love them, not because anyone will notice. “Understatement isn’t about hiding,” he explained. “It’s about mastering balance and timelessness.”

You see that philosophy in the Tonda PF, the watch that relaunched the brand’s modern era.

The bracelet flows so naturally into the case that you can’t see where one ends and the other begins. The guilloché dial catches light softly, never shouting. Even the PF logo at twelve o’clock is a small act of confidence. It replaces the full name, as if to say, “This watch is for me.”

That same thinking shapes every piece Parmigiani makes. The Perpetual Calendar reads like a time-only watch at first glance, its coaxial counters laid out with perfect symmetry.

The dial is brushed by hand, a grené texture so fine you can feel the warmth of the human touch, like the grain of a vinyl record. 

There’s no moonphase, no excess ornament. “We wanted serenity,” Terreni said. “You focus on hours and minutes first. Everything else should come later.”

Color matters too. Parmigiani’s palettes draw from Le Corbusier’s 1933 Architectural Polychromy, a system designed to make spaces feel calm for decades. The hues are gentle, modern, and intentionally slow.

Look at the steel and platinum of the Micro-Rotor, or the subtle gold tracing of the two-tone bracelet. These watches are designed to live with you, not just through you.

Even the mechanics are understated. Parmigiani’s PF703 movement is slim and quietly brilliant, a micro-rotor in platinum that keeps the case to just under eight millimeters thick.

The hand-finishing is subtle, the polish never too bright. Every small imperfection reveals a human hand at work.

Terreni’s approach is clear. Consistency over novelty. Restraint over noise. “A brand is like a person,” he said. “It has its own values, and you can’t pull it in every direction.” That’s why Parmigiani releases few watches each year, giving collectors time to actually feel them.

In a world where even luxury has become performative, Parmigiani stands apart. It’s not quiet luxury for the feed. It’s confidence without audience, love without spectacle, craft without noise.

Parmigiani doesn’t need to prove itself. It already knows what it is.