Editorial Girard-Perregaux Laureato New Watches Reviews

Is Dwayne Johnson listening? Girard-Perregaux Laureato Absolute Rock is fit for ‘The Rock’!

The Girard-Perregaux Laureato Absolute Rock is a striking sports watch release. It’s got a unique style of blue carbon glass case that is so much cooler to look at in the flesh. It is classically built in a very sporty manner though has design and material resembles with Hublot watches

Is Dwayne Johnson listening? Girard-Perregaux Laureato Absolute Rock is fit for ‘The Rock’!

I am just going to come out and say it: Girard-Perregaux’s Laureato collection and Hublot’s Big Bang are seemingly getting to merge into one another.

I am not saying they are copying each other, no. On the contrary, they couldn’t be more different.

Breaking boundaries

Hublot is more in your face, if you have it flash it kind of a brand, and Girard-Perregaux is more of here’s a big beast of a watch, but with fly under the radar coolness about it.

The reason why I am saying that the two designs seem to merge for me is due to their design philosophies: they are both pushing boundaries of what’s acceptable and what’s not, breaking away from the norms, creating big wrist machines that are full of new advanced tech, and more importantly, seem to be obsessed (fortunately) with ideas of blending materials and innovation. 

Dwayne Johnson connection

Enter Girard-Perregaux’s Laureato Absolute Rock, which according to Girard-Perregaux is a bridge between resistance and lightness, innovation and design.

On a side note, given the heft of the watch and the name, how cool would it have been if they got the original Rock, aka Dwayne Johnson, to launch this watch. They didn’t get ‘The Rock’, but Girard-Perregaux did do something interesting for the launch. 

The launch

The brand used 8 iconic locations from around the world to launch this, but they sort of ‘octagonised’ these locations to resemble the case of the watch.

Featuring locations such as the Shibuya crossroad in Tokyo, the skyscrapers in New York City, and Charles-de-Gaulle among others, Girard-Perregaux used the aerial views of these iconic places, visually reinterpreted the maps and territories to make appear a vibrant octagonal geometric shape. 

Impressed? So were we.

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Featured Image courtesy Girard-Perregaux. ©SOWIND SA 2016. All rights reserved.

The concept

Anyway, back to the watch. 

Girard-Perregaux first teased this as a concept watch at the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie in January 2019. A sort of trailer for the movie one might call it. Now released much later in the year 2019, the Laureato Absolute Rock simply rocks. (Apologies for the bad pun but the watch name was just begging for it). 

The material

The Laureato Absolute Rock is made of a material called Carbon Glass, that not only is eye catching in its texture — blue fibres interspersed onto a smooth and uniform appearance on all surfaces — and looks but also oozes essence of sportiness all the while introducing to the world a type of carbon that innately provides a guarantee of being full water resistant.

Girard-Perregaux patented this manufacturing process — again more and more echoes of Hublot’s design philosophy coming through — that involves an extreme compression of the materials during an injection procedure at high temperature.

What this has achieved for the brand is that it’s ended up providing extremely high resistance to the watch. 

“The carbon glass being 100 times more resistant than steel; without compromising on its lightness with a density close to 1 when steel is at about 8 and titanium 4.5.”

Girard-Perregaux. ©SOWIND SA 2016. All rights reserved.
Smalljohannsauty Girardperregaux 8409 1
Featured Image courtesy Girard-Perregaux. ©SOWIND SA 2016. All rights reserved.

The blue fibres

The blue fibres that I have already mentioned above deserve a second mention.

Just look at the case, I mean really look at it. It’s like military camouflage, but can be worn to a business meeting. It’s also doesn’t seem to follow any fixed pattern, so makes it even cooler as it’s pretty much like one of a kind on every piece. It’s got this amazing blue glow to it as well that needs to be seen in person to be truly appreciated.

The dial design

The dial architecture is pretty much what you would expect of a Laureato: it’s usually in two layers that appear on the face in the form of two superimposed plates.

The hour marking indices are cut out that reveal the lower plate. The rehaut —a flange of material around the dial of a watch — is nicely sloped and has white minute markings at the perimeter of the dial. 

All of this and you almost forget to notice that the Laureato Absolute Rock is actually a chronograph — 3 sub-dials featuring concentric circles & demarcated by bevelled step along their edge and an almost now you see it now you don’t date window at 4.30 — with slightly curved easy to push redesigned pushers on a bold 44m diameter case. 

Smallcjohannsauty Girard Perregaux 0h6a8360 2
Featured Image courtesy Girard-Perregaux. ©SOWIND SA 2016. All rights reserved.

#WatchYaGonnaDoABoutIt assessment 

The Girard-Perregaux Laureato Absolute Rock is a striking sports watch release.

It’s got a unique style of blue carbon glass case that is so much cooler to look at in the flesh. It is classically built in a very sporty manner though has design and material resemblance with Hublot watches. The carbon glass material makes for an appealing case for buying this watch, and the limited edition part cements that.

The size of 44mm does come off as bit big especially for anyone under 16.5cm wrist size, but due to the stealth look of this watch,  it has a true place in our Fusion Friday list. The high water resistance only adds to this and makes it great for people who indulge in water sports from time to time. It probably doesn’t make our His+Her list as even though women are increasing wearing larger watches these days, there is something intricately masculine about this watch that we won’t really recommend it for women.

This one has the potential to score big on our Grail-o-meter as well – it’s got everything a daily watch could need, and then some.

Overall, it’s a great looking watch from Girard-Perregaux, and is certainly worthy enough to add to any collection. 

Rate-a-Mate: 1100

Fusion Friday: Yes

His+Her: No

Grail-o-meterHigh

If you simply peruse the technical specifications, please head here to our Sneak Peek review.

Alternatively you can also check out our cool Infographic on this watch here.

To find out more about this and other Girard-Perregaux watches, visit the Girard-Perregaux website here.

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