This Compact Classic Perpetual Calendar Watch Is the Epitome of Restrained Elegance

This is one of life’s rare occasions where getting rid of diamonds is a good thing.

Close-up of a silver watch with gold hands and markers, featuring subdials and a brown leather strap.

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Published December 3, 2025

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One of the prevailing trends in the watch industry for 2025 has been a shift toward smaller case sizes. Some brands revived archival designs, others scaled down existing models and there have been plenty of original “Goldilocks” cases.

Vacheron Constantin, on the other hand, created a stunning daily dress watch with an on-trend case size by simply removing a fistful of diamonds from an existing design marketed toward women.

Silver Vacheron Constantin wristwatch with brown leather strap, featuring day, date, month, and moon phase indicators. — The new Traditionnelle Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin is essentially the 2022 design, minus the diamonds.

The new Traditionnelle Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin is nearly identical to a watch introduced in 2022 for the women’s collection, but without a layer of diamonds covering the bezel and lugs, and one more accenting the crown for good measure.

This addition by subtraction opens up the impressively compact automatic perpetual calendar to a much broader audience of men and women with deep pockets and classical taste.

Even without the stones, the new Traditionnelle is a paradigm of elegant watch design, retaining the solid gold 36mm case — available in the white and pink varieties — and a dial that tracks the time, day, date, month, leap year and lunar progression in a remarkably demure presentation.

Rose gold wristwatch with white dial, moon phase, and blue leather strap held in a hand. — The new Traditionnelle Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin has a 37mm wide case that is only 8.4mm tall.

Both the pink and white gold references have the same opaline dial, with pink gold used for the dauphine hour and minute hands, subdial hands, moonphase frame and wheel, baton hour markers and applied Maltese cross icon.

All three subdials have a faintly snailed texture and use a legible sans-serif font. A narrow railroad minute track encircles the rim of the dial, and there is no seconds hand to muddy the view.

Sometimes, diamonds aren’t forever

The Traditionnelle Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin has the type of simple, rounded case with gently curved lugs that dates back to the 1930s and will never go out of style. It measures 36.5mm across, to be exact, and has an as-advertised ultra-thin height of only 8.4mm.

Two luxury wristwatches with moon phase and calendar dials, one with a blue leather strap and gold case, the other with a brown leather strap and silver case. — The Traditionnelle Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin comes in white gold and pink gold.

The lineage of this discrete design can be traced back to 1983 with the release of Vacheron’s coveted reference 43031. It was even thinner at 8mm, despite having a remarkably similar dial arrangement.

This newest evolution features a more pronounced, yet still slim, bezel and adds a bit more height with an exhibition caseback, unlike the closed caseback of the 43031.

Silver wristwatch with white dial, moon phase indicator, and brown leather strap worn on a wrist with a beige textured sleeve. — The Traditionnelle Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin comes on an alligator leather pin-buckle strap.

Two colors are available in the Traditionnelle Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin. A solid white gold case comes on a brown alligator leather strap, and a pink gold case is paired with a blue alligator leather strap, each complete with a matching gold pin buckle.

In perpetuity

The diminutive size of this impressively complicated watch is made possible by Vacheron’s in-house Caliber 1120 QP automatic movement, which debuted in 1983 with the reference 43031, mentioned above.

It is built from 276 components and has a thickness of just 4.05mm. The rotor is decorated with Côtes de Genève and a 22-karat gold rim, all of which is on full display through an exhibition caseback.

Back view of a Vacheron Constantin watch showing intricate mechanical movement through a transparent case back with a brown leather strap. — Vacheron’s caliber 1120 QP automatic movement is displayed through a sapphire crystal caseback.

This illustrious movement operates a perpetual calendar, adjusted for leap years, with separate dials for the day, date and month. Additionally, there is a graduated moonphase with a gold-plated crescent-shaped window.

The only drawback to the Caliber 1120 QP is that it has a modest beat rate of 2.75Hz and only a 40-hour power reserve.

Rose gold Vacheron Constantin wristwatch with white dial, blue leather strap, moon phase, day, date, and month subdials. — The dial displays the hour, minute, day, date, month and lunar progression.

Availability and price

Despite removing a few dozen diamonds from the case, Vacheron only shaved two grand off the price. The new, more discreet Traditionnelle Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin remains a top-shelf luxury dress watch, priced at $100,000.

The bulk of that price is derived from the gold used in the case and dial, as well as the labor-intensive movement. It’s a true watch-lover’s flex, where only real ones will know how much money is strapped to your wrist.

Silver Vacheron Constantin wristwatch with white dial, moon phase indicator, and brown leather strap.

Vacheron Constantin Traditionnelle Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin

Specs

Case Size	36mm
Movement	VC caliber 1120 QP automatic
Water Resistance	30m

$100,000 at Vacheron Constantin

About the Author: Brad Lanphear is an associate editor at Gear Patrol covering watches and style. Before joining the publication, he previously wrote for Heddels and Men’s Health. Now, he’s on a never-ending quest to find the perfect pair of Japanese denim.

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