Several watch brands have experimented with transforming watches, such as Montblanc whose Metamorphosis II has a dial that morphs from a time-date format to a chronograph format by means of a mechanical transformation that takes about 15 seconds. This was a limited edition of 18 pieces, price on request so presumably a few hundred thousand…
The IW503801 by IWC is the Antoine de Saint Exupéry version of the Perpetual Calendar Top Gun IW502902 watch, with the differences being the tobacco brown dial, the display caseback, the Santoni strap with cream contrasting stitching and orange lining, and the calibre. The movement is the in-house 52610, visible through the sapphire caseback. This…
This watch by IWC Schaffhausen is almost identical to the previous 2012 version, the only difference being the embossed calfskin strap instead of the soft black textile strap. The ceramic case is 48 mm in diameter and 16 mm thick, solid caseback with Top Gun logo, and 6 bar water resistance. The dial is very…
The IW500917 is the luxury version of the Big Pilot’s Watch IW500912, IWC’s interpretation of the Type A B-Uhr watch. The 46mm case is in red gold, and likewise hands, conical crown and back. The watch is powered by the in-house 51111 calibre, running at 21,600 vibrations per hour, 3 Hertz. Power reserve is over…
The IWC IW500916 is one of the versions of the IWC Big Pilot’s Watch IW500912, the brand’s classic pilot’s watch with in-house movement. It has a double-riveted strap by Santoni, a conical screw-in crown, and a dial with the blue colour hallmarking Petit Prince models. The case size has been reduced from 48 to 46…
This is perhaps the closest (along with the Pilot’s Watch Mark XVIII) that IWC gets to the Type A B-Uhr watch in their pilot’s watch collection launched in January 2016. It has a double-riveted strap by Santoni, a conical screw-in crown, and a simple dial design with just date and power reserve subdial added to…
The IWC Pilot’s Watch Chronograph Top Gun IW389001 and the Pilot’s Watch Chronograph Top Gun Miramar IW389002 are very similar, using the same movement and having the dial arrangement with combined analogue totalizer for chronograph minutes and hours at the top of the dial. They both use the same in-house 89361 movement. They are different…
The IW379108 watch was introduced in 2012 in a red gold case and has remained virtually identical since then. A steel version was presented in 2015, and the only new feature in the model that IWC introduced in 2016 is the brown calfskin strap by Santoni, with its orange lining. The digital date and month…
IWC have been making their Pilot’s Watch Chronograph since 2006, and this year, this family of IW3777 watches have only minimal differences with respect to the series introduced in 2012. The dial has been tidied up, removing the minute numerals that were previously incorporated into the chapter ring, and removing the triple date display. Apart…
This pilot’s watch by IWC is distinctive for its tobacco brown dial and calfskin strap with cream-coloured contrasting stitching, one of the brand’s hallmarks for its watches made in cooperation with charity organization Fondation Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It is a close relation to the Pilot’s Watch Double Chronograph Edition “Le Petit Prince,” reference IW371807, presented…
This watch is one of IWC’s purest pilot watch designs, with just the date and power reserve subdial added to the classic layout. The 2016 version presented at SIHH in January has been slightly reduced in size, from 48 to 46 mm, 15 mm thick, with black ceramic case, titanium caseback and screw-in conical crown.…
The design of the IWC Top Gun Miramar is based on the B-Uhr Type B watches commissioned by the Luftwaffe in the 1930s and ‘40s and made then by IWC, A. Lange & Söhne, Wempe, Lacher & Company (now Laco), and Walter Storz (Stowa). Type B had two scales on the dial, an outer ring…
The IWC Schaffhausen Pilot’s Watch Mark XVIII comprises three references that are entry-level models and are also the closest thing to a 1940s pilot’s watch in the 2016 IWC collection. They have calfskin straps made by Santoni, with the Italian fashion footwear brand’s signature orange lining, or a metal bracelet. The 40mm case (11 mm…
IWC’s new Pilot’s Watch Timezoner Chronograph has an interesting complication: a world time function based on a sprung rotating bezel that you have to depress to turn, and which shows the time and date in another time zone, along with the 24-hour hand that functions as a day/night indicator. It has a busy dial, but…
These watches by IWC translate the pilot’s watch aesthetic into dimensions that seem small today, but that are wholly justified by historical watches. The original IWC Mark XI was 35 mm in diameter and so a millimetre smaller than the new models. Today, 36-mm watches of this type are ideal for people with smaller wrist…
The IWC Big Pilot’s Watch Annual Calendar Edition “Le Petit Prince” (reference IW502701) places last year’s Portugieser Annual Calendar into a pilot’s frame. The case in red gold, 46 mm diameter and 15.5 mm thick, is a couple of millimetres larger than the Portugieser, and so the calendar indications at the top are not quite…
Make no mistake about it, IWC’s latest collection of pilot’s watches presented on 18 January at SIHH in Geneva is phenomenal, a whole range of timepieces that includes technically innovative watches such as the Pilot’s Watch Timezoner Chronograph in which a second time zone can be set by turning the bezel, and pilot’s watches in…
This watch by Laurent Ferrier was born from the idea of putting SuperLuminova on a watch to make it legible in the dark. Laurent Ferrier’s classically-inspired watches usually have very slim, elegant hands that would not be suitable for SuperLuminova, and so for this piece he redesigned the hands into a slightly broader configuration with…
Company profile: Laurent Ferrier, born in 1946, is a third-generation watchmaker who trained at the Geneva school of watchmaking, and spent his working life, 37 years, at a famous maison in Geneva, developing prototype movements and then the creative design of timepieces. When he retired, he and his greatest friend François Servanin were able to…
The Piaget Emperador Coussin XL 700P brings quartz into a mechanical watch. Will purists like it? Who knows. But it is a bold, perhaps even revolutionary move, and Piaget are able to describe it as “the most precise mechanical watch in Switzerland.” Piaget has long made its own quartz movements – the name of this…