The IWC Big Pilot Perpetual Calendar Tourbillon Le Petit Prince

Greater than 80 years after its preliminary launch, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s novel Le Petit Prince or The Little Prince stays as fashionable as ever. As some of the lively manufacturers within the area of pilot’s watches, and realizing Saint-Exupéry’s profession as an aviator, IWC has lengthy partnered with The Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Youth Basis and has created dozens of devoted restricted editions, all enjoying on a single theme: blue and gold. Besides that now, the Schaffhausen-based model pushes the idea even additional in a daring full blue ceramic watch with gold accents, and a moderately complicated motion inside. Meet the brand new Huge Pilot Perpetual Calendar Tourbillon Le Petit Prince. 

This new and undeniably placing Le Petit Prince watch is an evolution of an present mannequin launched in 2021, again then with an 18k Armor gold case and vintage-inspired utilized Arabic numerals. This yr, the model brings one thing extra technical, extra fashionable and extra in keeping with its experience within the area of revolutionary supplies, with a model housed in a full blue ceramic case. An imposing watch – it’s named Huge Pilot in spite of everything – the matte completed case measures 46.5mm in diameter and no fewer than 16.18mm in thickness. Lug-to-lug… Someplace round 56mm. That’s not going to stay unnoticed, particularly when mixed with 5N gold accents on the screw-in crown and the caseback ring. At the very least, the blue color of the case is cool and weird, and the fabric is each resistant and lighter than most metals.

Shifting to the dial, whereas the blue sunray-brushed base that was used within the 2021 gold model stays, IWC has determined to offer this ceramic Huge Pilot Perpetual Calendar Tourbillon Le Petit Prince a contemporary technical and extra fashionable look, according to using ceramic for the case. That is principally as a result of basic rounded utilized numerals, as a substitute of classic, stylised numerals. The minute observe has additionally been streamlined and now options utilized luminous markers. The fingers are additionally the signature model of most BP watches however for the remaining, the dial has stored the identical format and the bizarre place of the flying tourbillon at 12 o’clock.

Contained in the watch is the highly effective in-house calibre 51950, an automated motion wound by a Petit Prince-themed stable gold rotor. This calibre comes with a 168-hour energy reserve (7 days) and is regulated by a flying one-minute tourbillon (82 elements and 0.635 grams) operating at 19,800 vibrations/hour. On prime sits the model’s signature perpetual calendar module, first developed by watchmaker Kurt Klaus in the course of the Eighties. It shows the calendar info on three subdials, together with the phases of the moon with the Little Prince on his asteroid – the moon section will solely deviate by in the future after 577.5 years. It additionally signifies the years in a 4-digit window.

Worn on a case-matching blue rubber strap, closed by a gold folding clasp, the polarising blue ceramic IWC Huge Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar Tourbillon Le Petit Prince IW504901 is a restricted version of 100 items. It’s priced at EUR 118,000 or CHF 100,000. For extra particulars, please go to iwc.com.