You may have heard of the Holy Trinity of watchmaking. This idea has been around as long as I can remember (I’m not young), and the Holy Trinity has always included Vacheron Constantin, Audemars Piguet, and Patek Philippe. The religious nature of the analogy is apt, given the elevated status of these three brands among Switzerland’s watch houses. However, the meaning of the Holy Trinity seems to have shifted in recent years, from the best watchmakers to the best brands. There’s a lot to unpack when considering that shift. Back in the day (let’s say up through the 1990s and into the 2000s) the Holy Trinity was a delineation of the three very best Swiss mechanical watchmakers, each of which had built its reputation by creating the most incredible timepieces of the golden era of Swiss watchmaking (roughly the 1940s and ’50s). These three houses carried historical prestige they’d built up decade after decade from consistently..
