IWC PILOT’S WATCHES 2016: AUTHENTIC AND ELEGANT

• THE NEW PILOT’S WATCHES FROM IWC SCHAFFHAUSEN

The 2016 Pilot’s Watch collection from Swiss luxury watch manufacturer IWC Schaffhausen offers a wide, balanced range of Pilot’s Watches stretching from the Big Pilot’s Heritage Watch to the stylish Mark XVIII and the elegant Pilot’s Watch Automatic 36. With the new Timezoner Chronograph, a simple twist is all it takes to change the timezone, making it the perfect world time watch for frequent travellers. The exclusive and emotional “Antoine de Saint Exupéry”
and “Le Petit Prince” collections should also be a source of pleasure to many collectors this year.

“In 2016, we’re widening our range to include smaller Pilot’s Watches in the entry-level segment, without neglecting our traditional heritage,” explains Georges Kern, CEO of IWC Schaffhausen. “With our stylish Pilot’s Watch Mark XVIII and elegant Pilot’s Watch Automatic 36, we’re addressing women and men with slimmer wrists who have a penchant for elegance and understatement. At the same time, we’re producing the sizeable and authentic Big Pilot’s Heritage
Watch, an observer’s watch that’s strongly reminiscent of the Big Pilot’s Watch of 1940. And this year, IWC is launching yet another world-first that fits in particularly well with the subject of flying: the Pilot’s Watch Timezoner Chronograph is the first timepiece where a new time zone, including the date, can be set merely by turning the bezel. And finally, as every year, we have the exclusive ‘Antoine de Saint Exupéry’ and ‘Le PetitPrince’
collections. Their appeal lies in their original design ideas, such as the special annual calendar.”

Among the eye-catchers of the current collection are undoubtedly the Big Pilot’s Heritage Watch 55 (Ref.IW510401) and the Big Pilot’s Heritage Watch 48 (Ref.
IW510301). They are clearly inspired by the historic observer’s watch, and not only because of their enormous case diameters of 55 and 48 millimetres. Christian Knoop, Creative Director at IWC Schaffhausen: “For us, it was vital from the start that the Heritage watches were true to the original – from the design of the dial and the colour of the luminescent numerals to the shape of the propeller-like hands and the riveted calfskin straps. It’s like jumping back in time to the pioneering age of aviation, except that we’ve got state-of-the-art IWC watch technology.” And that, apart from IWC-manufactured calibres, includes features such as a sliding clutch to protect hand-wound movements from overwinding, titanium cases and the soft-iron inner case as protection against magnetic fields. Christian Knoop: “Integrating protection against magnetic fields in the Big Pilot’s Heritage Watch 48 with its see-through back visibly combines our tradition and manufacturing expertise.”

For IWC’s engineers, creating the Pilot’s Watch Timezoner Chronograph (Ref. IW395001) meant bringing together three technologies: the city ring from the Pilot’s Watch Worldtimer; a sprung rotating bezel, which cannot be moved inadvertently; and, from IWC’s latest Aquatimer generation, the external/internal rotating bezel mechanism that transfers the rotational movement to the inside of the watch. The result is a world time watch that shows its owner a new time zone and the time of day together with the 24-hour display and the new date, all with a simple twist of the wrist. The Pilot’s Watch Timezoner Chronographis
fitted with a calfskin strap.

“We are now supplying almost all our Pilot’s Watches with top-quality calfskin straps from Santoni,” explains Creative Director Christian Knoop. “By doing so, we are bridging the gap between tradition and contemporary elegance – straps for pilot’s watches were always made of hard-wearingcalf skin or cowhide. It was the material used for the straps on the Big Pilot’s Watch. But we wouldn’t be IWC if we didn’t make our straps an experience in their own unique right. On the outside, they have the typical Santoni patina that makes completely new leather look as if it had several years of careful use behind it. The brand is then made even more recognizable by the soft, orange leather lining. In addition to this, we offer the Pilot’s Watch Chronograph Spit fire and the new Pilot’s Watch automatic 36 with partially polished stainless-steel bracelets, which makes the Pilot’s Watch collection even more attractive and elegant.”

In the entry-level segment of the new Pilot’s Watch collection, IWC has widened the choice for watch lovers who prefer timepieces to be slightly smaller and more elegant. With a case measuring 36 millimetres in diameter, the Pilot’sWatch Automatic 36 (Ref. 3240) is the smallest watch in the manufacturer’s current collection. The elegant, timelessly designed three-hand watch is intended for watch lovers with a slimmer wrist. The dial design of the five models, which come with a choice of three different dials, is reduced and uncluttered.

The “Antoine de Saint Exupéry” and “Le Petit Prince” collections play a special role in the Pilot’s Watch line. IWC Schaffhausen has created a memorial to the French author and pilot, and to his most famous work, “The Little Prince”,every year since 2006 and 2013, respectively. Throughout his life, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was torn between flying and writing, between technology and poetry. Now, IWC’s engineers and the designers of the Big Pilot’s Watch AnnualCalendar
Edition “Le Petit Prince” (Ref. IW502701) have succeeded in uniting the two worlds. They modelled the solid gold rotor at the back of the watch to show the
famous image of the little prince standing on his tiny asteroid and regarding the heavens with wide-open eyes. At the same time, he turns on his own axis and provides the power needed by the watch. In 2016, three unlimited Pilot’sWatches are likewise decked out with the midnight blue dial of the Edition “Le Petit Prince”: the Big Pilot’s Watch (Ref. IW500916), the Pilot’s Watch Chronograph (Ref. IW377714) and the Pilot’s Watch Mark XVIII (Ref. IW327004). And with the Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar Edition “Antoine de Saint Exupéry” (Ref.IW503801) and the Pilot’s Watch Double Chronograph Edition “Antoine de Saint Exupéry” (Ref. IW371808), IWC’s designers have put together a striking assembly of immediately recognizable timepieces. Both models have a tobacco brown dial and a calfskin strap with cream-coloured ornamental seams that serve as a reminder of Saint-Exupéry’s flying suit.

In 2016, IWC Schaffhausen also presents the new Pilot’s Watch Mark XVIII (Ref. IW327001/IW327002/IW327011) as an entry-level model with a calfskin strap or stainlesssteel bracelet. Unlike its predecessor, the Mark XVII, it no longer features the triple date display. Optically speaking, this provides more space on the dial and the watch appears cleaner, despite the fact that the diameter of the case, at 40 millimetres, is one millimetre smaller compared with the previousmodel.
Christian Knoop, Creative Director at IWC Schaffhausen, explains: “When designing the dials for the classic Pilot’s Watches, we had one thing in mind: how could we get closer to the originals established by IWC in the form of the Big Pilot’s Watch and the Mark 11? Because we wanted to get back to an authentic, or historic, Pilot’s Watch look.

And that stands or falls on the clarity of the dial, timeless simplicity and a reduction to the essential. Our entire range of Pilot’s Watches is inspired by the original. That is also why we decided to bring back the figure ‘9’, which disappeared from the dial in 2002 with the redesign of the Big Pilot’s Watch. The triangular index has also reassumed its familiar position at ‘12 o’clock’, just below the chapter ring.”

The design team came to the same decision with the triple date display, which was introduced as part of the redesign of the Pilot’s Watches in 2012. In the same way, the dials of the Big Pilot’s Watch (Ref. IW500912) and the Pilot’s Watch Chronograph (Ref. IW377709/IW377710) have been slightly reworked to restore the feature that had made the classic Pilot’s Watches so special: clarity and outstanding legibility, whatever the visibility. Both watches are fitted with a calfskin strap, and the Pilot’s Watch Chronograph is also available with a stainless-steel bracelet.

Georges Kern sums up the highlights of the 2016 collection: “With the sheer choice of models in the Pilot’sWatch collection we’re also appealing to watch lovers who have until now dismissed the idea of an IWC watch. With the Pilot’s Watch Automatic 36 and the Pilot’s Watch Mark XVIII, we have widened the range of models in the entry-level segment. At the other end of the scale, we’ve created sizeable, authentic observer’s watches that resemble the historic original but are more in line with modern ideas of comfort. Between these two extremes, we offer our customers innovative complications like the Timezoner, elegant classics like the Pilot’s Watch Spitfire and imaginative details like the rotor in the annual calendar. With the polished bezels, the Santoni alligator leather and calfskin straps and the partly polished stainless-steel bracelets, the new Pilot’s Watch collection has become even more attractive and elegant.”

PILOT’S WATCHES SINCE 1936 The very first IWC Pilot’s Watches of the 1930s and 1940s set technical benchmarks, and their dial design determined the overall appearance that has remained so distinctive to this day. During the pioneering days of aviation, most pilots had to navigate with the help of pocket watches, because special wristwatches for pilots were still few and far between. By contrast, the first Special Pilot’s Watch, built by IWC in 1936, already featured a rugged glass, a rotating bezel with an arrowhead index for instantaneous legibility and an antimagnetic escapement, together with highcontrast, luminescent hands and numerals.

From 1940, IWC started producing the Big Pilot’s Watch (52-calibre T.S.C.) in accordance with military specifications. It featured an IWC-manufactured watch movement and large seconds hand. With a case measuring 55 millimetres in diameter and weighing in at 183 grams, until 2016 it was the most voluminous wristwatch ever made by IWC. In terms of precision, it met chronometer standards as well as the technical demands placed on a military navigation or observer’s watch back in those days.

This instrument look was the inspiration for IWC’s design of the Mark 11 with its hand-wound 89 calibre, produced from 1948 onwards. This, the best known of the Pilot’s Watches from the Schaffhausen-based manufacturer, was originally built for the Royal Air Force and used for more than 30 years. Its movement is enclosed in a soft-iron inner case to shield the movement from magnetic fields.

 In 1988, the Pilot’s Watch tradition was taken up and perpetuated by the Pilot’s Chronograph. This was followed in 1992 by the Pilot’s Watch Double Chronograph with a splitseconds mechanism and automatic winding. In 1994, the Mark XII Pilot’s Watch succeeded the Mark 11. As was to be expected, it was a state-of-the-art timepiece featuring an automatic movement and date display. That same year, with the unveiling of the Pilot’s Chronograph Ceramic, IWC set two trends in motion that were later to be taken up gratefully by the watchmaking industry. Firstly, there was the exciting design of a pilot’s watch that was completely black. Secondly, it was the first time this model from IWC had been made with ceramic, which is enormously difficult to machine. In 1998, the Pilot’s Watch UTC – where changesto both the time and date can be made via the crown – was IWC’s reaction to growing mobility in an increasingly globalized world.

In 2002, IWC re-established its Big Pilot’s Watch tradition when it unveiled an enormous timepiece with a 7-day movement and Pellaton automatic winding system, the design of which was clearly inspired by its even-larger forebear launched in 1940.

In 2003, IWC began producing a Pilot’s Watch series named after the legendary British aircraft, the Spitfire. The outstanding role played by the most successful British fighter and reconnaissance plane of all time in the Battle of Britain granted the aircraft – of which more were built than any other British plane – lasting cult status in its home country. In its day, the Spitfire was a technological masterpiece of timeless elegance and became the model on which the eponymous IWC watch family was based.

Since 2006, IWC has been honouring the life’s work of French poet and pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry with specialeditions of its Pilot’s Watches. Saint-Exupéry was already a legend in his own lifetime. People are fascinated as much by his books, which have been translated into more than 50 languages, as by his adventurous life and his inherent passion for flying. During the Second World War, he was a fighter pilot against the occupying German forces. On 31 July 1944, Saint-Ex, as he was fondly referred to by his admirers, climbed into the cockpit of his Lightning P-38 to carry out a reconnaissance mission over occupied France. He never returned. In 2003, wreckage from his Lightning was salvaged from the Mediterranean near Marseilles.

In 2007, the Pilot’s Watch Double Chronograph Edition TOP GUN joined the other members of the IWC Pilot’s Watch squadron. It takes its name from a special training course offered by the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School, the Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor, better known by its legendary accolade Top Gun. Anyone who successfully completes this course is part of a tiny elite comprising the best-trained, fastest-reacting and most courageous pilots in the world.

The demands placed on the young pilots are no less exacting than those on the materials that propel them above the clouds at supersonic speeds – materials that cannot afford to show any sign of weakness. This is another reason why the designers chose two materials that IWC was the first manufacturer in the world to use in watchmaking: hightech ceramic for the case and titanium for the case back and controls.

IWC Schaffhausen declared 2012 another Year of the Pilot’sWatches. With five new models at a stroke, the TOP GUN collection established itself as an independent line within the IWC Pilot’s Watch family. Inspired by the spirit of the Top Gun flying school in Miramar, California, two Miramarmodels in the TOP GUN collection were the first to feature an authentic military design. With its modernized look, new features and IWC-manufactured movements, the Spitfire squadron prepared for a vertical take-off. The IWC Pilot’s Watch Classics collection appeared with five models in the authentic cockpit design.

 The new 2016 Pilot’s Watch collection will no doubt be as warmly received by lovers of authentic Pilot’s Watches as by admirers of elegant contemporary timepieces and rare complications.