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IWC turns on the Latin charm
Watches and Wonders

IWC turns on the Latin charm

Tuesday, 06 October 2015
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Christophe Roulet
Editor-in-chief, HH Journal

“The desire to learn is the key to understanding.”

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3 min read

This year, as last, the Schaffhausen manufacture worked its Latin charm to seduce visitors to the third edition of Watches&Wonders in Hong Kong. Accordingly, the Portofino range was centre-stage with a monopusher chronograph, a day-date, and three new references in the 37 line for women.

In the world of watches, an anniversary spells a unique opportunity for a brand to show off its technical mastery on models that have helped forge its history. Which perhaps explains why birthdays seem to come around more and more frequently. There was a time when only a centennial or a half-century were deemed worthy of celebration. From there, it was but a short leap to commemorating ten-year milestones, and now five-year. How long before we are celebrating lucky numbers, perhaps raising our glasses to six-month anniversaries or even sending congratulations on every unbirthday, Mad Hatter-style. In the meantime, 2015 marks the 75th anniversary of IWC’s Portugieser, the new name of the watch that started out more simply as the Portuguese.

Accordingly, IWC pulled out all the stops at the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH) in January this year to showcase a watch that was indeed created at the request of two Portuguese businessmen in search of absolute precision. Nine months later at Watches&Wonders, IWC trained the spotlight on some of the models presented earlier in the year, including the Portugieser Annual Calendar, the first of its kind in IWC’s collections, and two anniversary limited editions, namely the Portugieser Perpetual Calendar Digital Date-Month with flyback chronograph and the Portugieser Hand-Wound Eight Days, which is every inch true to the original 1940s design.

IWC Portofino Automatic Moon Phase 37
Portofino, ma si!

While this little taster was already enough to titillate even the most jaded palates. IWC broke down all resistance when it turned on its Latin charm. And what better way to get into the mood than to be seduced all over again by Peter Lindbergh’s promotional film, shot on the Italian coast with Cate Blanchett, Emily Blunt, Ewan McGregor, Christoph Waltz, Zhou Xun and the Portofino collection as guest star. A collection which IWC chose to highlight in Hong Kong, as it already did last year with the introduction of the 37mm line for women which now extends to three new references: a Portofino Automatic Moon Phase 37 in steel with diamonds on the mother-of-pearl dial, and two Portofino Automatic 37 three-handers with date, also in diamond-set steel. For the men in its life, IWC has introduced a Portofino Hand-Wound Day & Date with the new in-house 59220 calibre, and a Portofino Hand-Wound Monopusher, a first for the brand that is driven by the 59360 calibre with an eight-day power reserve, a distinguishing feature of the 59000 movement family.

This microtechnical demonstration also had its “literary” counterpart. Documentation for the timepieces presented at this third Watches&Wonders took the form of a minuscule catalogue, barely bigger than a watch dial. Fortunately it came with a loupe for ease of reading. For a brand that likes to celebrate its anniversaries in grand style, surrounded by film stars and famous athletes, this was something of a minimalist approach.

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