Estação Cronográfica afirma-se cada vez mais como grande plataforma de informação, a nível internacional, sobre a temática relojoeira, em língua portuguesa. Mas, numa realidade globalizada, também tem aqui publicado textos em inglês ou francês.
Agora, e com muito prazer e orgulho, trás a apreciação pessoal de António Gomes, um dos principais coleccionadores mundiais de peças históricas IWC, sobre os novos relógios que a manufactura de Schaffhausen apresentou por estes dias em Genebra.
O português António Gomes, ele próprio piloto de avião, convidado da manufactura ao salão e aos eventos que organizou, lança aqui o seu olhar crítico sobre o que viu em Genebra:
IWC presented the new line of pilot watches at the Salon Internationale de la Haute Horlogerie in Geneve amidst many celebrities from the movie industry, and the world of sport, in a mockup aircraft carrier appropriately named Jones. There was even what IWC called an F-18 simulator, but in reality it was nothing more than a flight video game on steroids. The whole setting was impressive, though, and must have cost a couple of million Euros.
O stand da IWC no Salão de Alta Relojoaria de Genebra, com o simulador de voo
IWC is cleverly selling a fantasy to wannabe pilots, who in all likelihood will never set foot inside a cockpit of a light aircraft, let alone a high performance military jet fighter. To reinforce this fantasy IWC has given these watches fancy names like Top Gun and Top Gun Miramar and increased the size of the Big Pilot with ceramic case to a whopping 48mm, as if to compensate for some other anatomical shortage.
It is a mystery why IWC chose to associate itself with a school for fighter pilots, since a traditional dog-fight (air combat) rarely takes more than 30 seconds, during which no pilot in his right mind will be looking at the watch. The fact is that those watches have little or nothing to do with aviation proper and some their design features are nonsensical in aviation.
The design of the dial in the Big Pilot Watch Miramar, for instance, with the Power Reserve Indicator obstructing a large part of the dial with irrelevant information, and the Chronograph Top Gun Miramar with the date window showing not only the current date but the previous and the following day. The function and utility of this feature for aviation, or even daily life, remains a mystery.
The new World Timer with 45mm diameter and the Mark XVII with 42mm could have been excellent watches, if it were not for the silly triple date window.
On the positive side, the Spitfire line was much improved, and the Spitfire Perpetual Calendar Digital Date-Month in rose gold, although not really a pilot watch, is an outstanding watch by any measure. The price, however, puts it out of reach of the vast majority watch lovers.
My overhaul impression is that IWC is steadily departing from its roots where sobriety and understatement were the main features of their watches, in search of short term profits by catering to the tastes of the Chinese nouveau-riche. The problem with that approach is that these nouveau-riche will eventually be old rich, and may resent having been fooled, and abandon the brand. Some will say that there will always be nouveau-riche to buy flashy watches and they will be right. I wonder, however, the wisdom of having the reputation of a company for the nouveau-riche.
Alguns dos novos modelos da linha Pilot
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