00/24 WatchWorld

When I first became interested in watches, it was IWC’s Portuguese that got me hooked. A friend had one. As a junior journalist with no previous knowledge of expensive watches or any notion that people still even wore mechanical timepieces, I’d recently stumbled upon this strange industry that was turning dead technology into high art. Suddenly I was noticing the watches people wore, and my friend’s IWC Portuguese Automatic had me transfixed: the balance of the design, the perfect proportions of every element, the crispness of the numerals. Suddenly it clicked why people fetishized these mechanical devices, and I caught the bug. One day I will have one, I told myself.

Designpuritanere og hard-core IWC fans verden over er garanteret begejstrede over dette klassiske Ingenieur, der hylder Gentas stregr fra 1976 og desuden bevarer en anstændig diameter på 40 millimeter. Der er ingen tvivl om, at netop denne model er en horologisk hyldest til designeren bag Ingenieur SL fra 1976, Gerald Genta. Genta var også manden bag Audemars Piguet Royal Oak fra 1972 og Patek Philippe Nautilus fra 1976 samt mange andre legendariske ure.

One of our favourite places, the Fine Watch Room at Harrods, is currently home to an exhibition of many of the new watches announced at SIHH. Watch fans who want to check these out before they read all about them in the forthcoming issues of 0024 WatchWorld and 0024 Horloges are able to see these until this Sunday.

Christian: "2 things that I love...."

Let’s start our Forum Friday with an essential matter sparked by a thought on the essence of a purist. According to the Cambridge dictionary a purist is “someone who believes in and follows very traditional rules or ideas in a subject.” It also provides us with this clear example of a purist: “A purist eat smoked salmon with nothing more than lemon and black pepper.”

If I’m honest, SIHH 2013 seemed a slightly muted affair. There were few genuinely new and original watches outside the haute horological limited editions, and excitement levels weren’t quite bubbling over. It’s not that there weren’t plenty of superbly made watches (there certainly were) and bold horological flights of fancy (thank you Roger Dubuis, Greubel Forsey and others); but the new watches in the mainstream ranges were mostly evolutions, in some cases bordering on repetitions, rather than genuine new directions. After last year’s Asian-friendly razzmatazz, when you couldn’t move for garish dragons, eye-popping skeletonization and crazy tourbillons, it all seemed a little quieter.

This year IWC is introducing strong new Ingenieur-models that all pay tribute to the collaboration with the AMG Petronas Formula 1 team. This is not someting new per se, as IWC has been working with AMG since 2004.

Each year, as most watch fans will know, IWC concentrates its new models around one of its families of watches, and in 2013 it’s the Ingenieur line that’ll be getting a reboot. We can now bring you the first new watches of the collection, along with a bit of associated scene setting – and it’s all about speed. With the new Ingenieur pieces IWC is getting on board with one of the fastest Formula 1 teams on the planet, Mercedes AMG Petronas - Lewis Hamilton's new home for 2013. I just spent two days in the company of IWC and the F1 team, and in the next issue of the magazine we’ll bring you an exclusive look inside the team’s factory and HQ. But for now, let’s concentrate on the watches.

Philosopher and international editor-in-chief of 00/24 WatchWorld magazine Karel Hubert fields 10 important questions many watch lovers do not dare to ask. And gives the answers many people do not want to hear. Final question: can a watch add something to our life?

Recently I oversaw a trade between two friends at my local coffee shop (yes, in Denmark we drink coffee in our coffee shops). A wonderful IWC Da Vinci Chronograph of 18k gold was on the table. This is such an incredibly handsome watch. This watch was originally designed by my good friend and former IWC chief designer, Guy Bove (now perfecting the watches at Chopard) and full of extraordinary details.