From Cockpit To Compact

With the new Big Pilot’s Watch 43-mm collection, launched at this year’s virtual Watches & Wonders showcase event, aviation-watch maestro IWC adapts its most iconic design into a more understated, ergonomic package.

- Mark Bernardo

While it has produced some notable complicated timepieces throughout the years, IWC Schaffhausen has mostly opted for clarity and simplicity in naming its products. When the company was asked to develop a timepiece especially for pilots in 1936, it named the resulting watch the Special Watch for Pilots. And when it followed up that historic piece with one that was much bigger, the brain trust at the International Watch Company didn’t turn to a focus group to figure out a clever name: it simply called it the Big Pilot’s Watch. Throughout various incarnations since its return to the IWC lineup nearly 20 years ago, The Big Pilot’s mammoth size has been its constant, its calling card, and to a certain segment of watch aficionados, its liability. This year, IWC makes the bold move of slimming down the Big Pilot in hopes of bringing its classical design to a new audience.

“With the new 43-mm Big Pilot’s Watch collection, we are really addressing the many customers who are interested in IWC, who like the nature of the Big Pilot design, but who categorically do not wear a 46-mm watch for obvious ergonomic reasons,” states IWC’s CEO Christoph Grainger-Herr. “We wanted to see if we could create a Big Pilot that looks and feels every bit like a Big Pilot, with the same very strong design DNA, but with improved ergonomics and wearability to ensure that it’s not just for people with very large wrists.”