Patrick Dewaere — watch collection

About Patrick Dewaere’s watch collection

Patrick Dewaere was one of the most compelling French actors of his generation. Born in 1947, he came to prominence in the early 1970s through his stage work with the Café de la Gare theatre troupe alongside Coluche and Miou-Miou, before transitioning to film with immediate impact. His breakthrough came with Bertrand Blier's Les Valseuses (1974), a film that announced an entirely new register of French masculinity on screen. He followed that with a string of critically praised performances throughout the late 1970s, including Série noire (1979) and Coup de tête (1979), cementing his reputation as an actor of raw and unpredictable intensity. His career was cut short by his death in 1982 at the age of 35, but his body of work remains a reference point in French cinema.

The Patrick Dewaere watch collection, based on photographic evidence, centres on at least one significant piece: a Patek Philippe Nautilus reference 3700/1A. This is the original Nautilus, launched in 1976 and designed by Gérald Genta, the same designer behind the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak. The 3700/1A was produced in stainless steel at a retail price that deliberately exceeded comparable gold watches of the era — an audacious commercial move by Patek Philippe that nonetheless found a ready audience among those who understood what they were looking at. Spotting one on Dewaere's wrist in what appears to be a late 1970s or very early 1980s photograph places him among the first wave of people to wear the Nautilus as a contemporary object rather than a collectible.

The choice of a steel sports watch from Patek Philippe, worn close to the moment of its release, says something concrete about Dewaere's instincts. The Nautilus was not yet a trophy in the late 1970s — it was a considered and somewhat contrarian purchase, favoured by those with genuine interest in watchmaking rather than those seeking conventional luxury signalling. For a working actor associated with anti-establishment French cinema, the reference 3700/1A is, in retrospect, a fitting choice.