Master watchmaker Michel Parmigiani, founder of Parmigiani Fleurier, turns 70 years old today, and the eponymous maison he founded in 1996 is commemorating this milestone birthday with the Toric Heritage, a limited-edition timepiece that takes its design cues, appropriately, from the first wristwatch that he ever designed.

Parmigiani Fleurier Toric Heritage

Born in 1950 in Neuchâtel, Michel Parmigiani grew up with a devotion to both watchmaking and architecture, and the latter discipline would profoundly influence his approach to the former, which Parmigiani chose as his career. Against the advice of many peers, he established a timepiece restoration workshop in 1976, at the height of the Quartz Crisis, and quickly became known as the go-to restorer for clients such as the Patek Philippe Museum and the Sandoz Family Foundation, which encouraged Parmigiani to start his own watch brand with its full support.
Michel Parmigiani in 1967

The original Toric, which Parmigiani Fleurier redesigned and re-released in 2016, was the first wristwatch designed for that brand and thus the foundation of the modern collection. Like all the timepieces that make up the Parmigiani portfolio, the Toric’s case draws inspiration from the Golden Ratio, used in art and architecture to create tangibly harmonious proportions, and from its links to the Fibonacci sequence, the mathematical principle that maintains elegant balance in nature. The polished steel case, with hand-done knur...