Over its year history, IWC Schaffhausen has developed a reputation for creating functional complications, especially chronographs and calendars, which are ingenious, robust, and easy for customers to use. How would you introduce IWC as a brand and describe the collections to a new watch collector?
He travelled from Boston to Schaffhausen to combine skilled Swiss craftsmanship with the latest industrial technology from his homeland. By establishing the first centralised watch production in Switzerland, he achieved unprecedented levels of quality and precision.
This reputation of robustness and accuracy made IWC a reference for professional applications and formed the foundations for collections that were designed for navigators, divers and aviators. The Portugieser goes back to the iconic Reference from the late s and features an extraordinarily pure and crisp design. Our youngest collection is the Portofino. Launched during the s, it combines the laid-back lifestyle of the Mediterranean with a touch of glamour and timeless elegance.
Based on our unique founding story, we have developed a different, rather engineering-driven approach to watchmaking. While other brands are rooted in a more artisanal and decorative way of watchmaking, IWC creates functional complications, focusing on precision, robustness, legibility and user-friendliness. An example of this is our legendary perpetual calendar, whose displays can all be adjusted simply via the crown without additional pushers.
The IWC-typical engineering approach has also produced iconic designs. In your opinion, which is the most significant collection or piece from IWC and why?
