In Top Shape

In conversation with Christoph Grainger-Herr CEO, IWC Schaffhausen, on the brand’s 2024 smash hits, and what constitutes the perfect WC watch

- Preetika Mathew

It’s been a strong year for IWC Schaffhausen. At Watches and Wonders Geneva 2024, among the many novelties the brand launched was the Portugieser Eternal Calendar, which apart from recognising the different lengths of the months and adding precise leap years, also takes into account the Gregorian calendar’s leap-year exception rules, ensuring that the calendar automatically skips three leap years over four centuries. However, the aspect that has entered it into the Guinness Book of World Records is its extremely precise moonphase display, which will only deviate from the moon’s orbit by one day after 45 million years. Apart from this, the brand also showcased a range of Portugiesers that highlighted perpetual calendar and moonphase functions, and by extension the brand’s legacy in the complications.

Last year, too, IWC Schaffhausen created a buzz with its Ingenieur releases, a resuscitation of Gérald Genta’s design, and the year before that it was the coloured ceramics of its Top Gun line. For CEO Christoph Grainger-Herr, it’s all about the brand attitude of innovation and evolving classic designs in a timeless way. We caught up with him on his recent visit to India to understand how IWC Schaffhausen is being developed for modern consumers.

WatchTime India: How has 2024 been so far for IWC Schaffhausen? Christoph Grainger-Herr: