In the high-pressure atmosphere of Watches and Wonders Geneva, where novelties come to receive judgment, IWC Schaffhausen chose to remind the world why it remains the definitive master of the skies. This year marks a staggering milestone: the 90th anniversary of the Pilot’s collection, which has a lineage tracing back to the 1936 “Special Pilot’s Watch” (Ref. IW436).

While the collection’s DNA is rooted in the functional austerity of the mid-century—from the oversized 1940 B-Uhr to the legendary Mark 11 – the 2026 presentation was anything but nostalgic. Instead, the “Engineers of Schaffhausen” leveraged their IWC Experimental (XPL) division to push the boundaries of both material science and mechanical logic.

In our latest editorial “scramble,” the editors of WOW Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand convene to dissect whether the resulting novelties represent the most significant leap for the collection since the Kurt Klaus era. From the surreal spectacle of glowing Big Pilots in darkened auditoriums to the “LIGA wizardry” powering the new Calibre 82665, the trio digs into where IWC is going.

RC: I made a new personal record this year. I have worn a single watch for 18 consecutive days, on the annual Watches and Wonders Geneva trip, of course. This beats the previous record of 17 days for WWG 2024. I also wore this same watch to WWG 2025, but the trip was slightly shorter at 16 days total.

The watch in question? It’s the Pilot’s Watch Chronograph 41 (Ref. IW388101) that I bought following my visit to IWC’s headquarter in Schaffhausen in June 2023. The idea from the beginning and until now is for it to be my “watch fair” timepiece – the one whose bracelet I can very quickly extend and put on my right wrist as I try the novelties being presented on my left wrist. This may sound somewhat snobbish, but I come from the perspective of safety, if you can appreciate it.

DG: What a fantastic story! I did not realise all the times I met you; in the halls; in the presentation rooms; and during dinner that you had such an interesting philosophy on your wrist. I think you chose the perfect timepiece for this purpose though. The Pilot’s Watch was designed to function in the most hostile of environments, and Watches & Wonders Geneva can get a bit hectic! Rushing from one appointment to the next and dodging trolley bags left and right! The legibility I am sure would have helped for keeping on schedule. I wonder however, did you ever use the chronograph? Maybe how long a presentation went over the limit? Or how long it took them to make your coffee?

AS: It is very funny to hear about new records for wear-time! As it happens, I brought more than one watch (of my own) to the party this year, for the first time. There was an idea there, but I will save that for another discussion session. Alas, neither of the watches was a chronograph but one was obviously the IWC Aquatimer (discontinued 2008) – sadly I do not have a Pilot’s Watch from IWC though I have always admired them from afar… For the Big Pilots, that works just fine.

As for hostile environments and the Palexpo, I have a lot of sympathy there (and I definitely take as much care as possible to avoid scratching my watches) but I doubt that a chronograph would help any! Well, I might have some thoughts there (especially on timing my peers at presentations, if I’m feeling especially curmudgeonly) but this is not the occasion. In any case, we are gathered here today to talk about some of the most significant watches of the fair, and they happen to be IWC Pilot’s Watches. Who would have guessed eh? And a number of perpetual calendars too, which is my favourite complication. And now, speaking of coffee, I need some!

RC: While you go make that, I will reply to Daniel that I did not time the various sessions during the day. I started the chronograph when I left my hotel room and stopped it upon returning to see how many hours I was outside that day.

DG: Which is practically all of the waking hours, am I right?

AS: I must say that I have never timed how long I spend at the fair… what a novel idea! It might be especially useful on the fair’s public days, but I digress.

RC: More impressive than how long we spent at the fair is what we saw there. And, this year, the most impressive stunt I witnessed with my own eyes was the ending part of the keynote by IWC’s Chris Grainger-Herr. As he was talking about the Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar Ceralume® (Ref. IW505801) in the darkened auditorium, he was quietly joined by four figures who pulled their left arms out on cue to show green and highly luminous objects on their wrists that I could see from the other end of the hall from the stage. The moment was surreal, and captured as video on my phone if anyone wants proof.

AS: That thing was so bright I could see it on the wrists of the guys on stage with Grainger-Herr, even without the aid of the live-feed camera screening a shot of someone’s wrist there (it does not look as convincing in the video of the keynote address, but Ruckdee’s video tells the tale of being in the room better). I have always recommended that people check their lume levels before heading into movies or maybe work-related presentations and the like. Usually, this is just a bit of vanity but if you have a watch in Ceralume®, watch out! Eight hours (according to Grainger-Herr at the keynote) of glow-in-the-dark power? I am blown away…still. My first thought was that I need such a watch on standby just to distract people at Watches and Wonders so I can get dibs on some pieces!

DG: Alas, I did not have time to catch the keynote presentation, but my first encounter with Ceralume® was at their booth and it was also a spectacle. It was quite a sight because we were in a booth made to mimic the inside of a spaceship, and there it was, a watch that was glowing in a case like some sort of alien artifact. It was crazy! And I am really happy to see the material go from a concept when it was first unveiled on Lewis Hamilton’s wrist (he is now forced to wear something else now by the way) to a full-on production model where they have stabilised the production of this futuristic material. I cannot wait to see what they do with it next.

RC: According to IWC, Ceralume® is their next level ceramic technology where Super-LumiNova pigments are added to the usual blend of ceramic powders. The development took them some years, and they were assisted by specialist company RC Tritec whose unique business is the Super-Luminova luminous pigments.

DG: I was speaking to one of the presenters during the touch-andtry session and he mentioned that one of the challenges in making this material was that the molecules of the zirconium oxide and luminescent material were in different sizes. And it was really difficult to mix them and ensure the resulting mass was homogeneous so that the entire case glows uniformly and there are no patches of lume.

AS: It was introduced in 2024, if I recall our own coverage correctly (and we correctly noted the involvement of RC Tritec), and presented in a production watch this year, which is very impressive in the world of fine watchmaking. As you gentlemen will be aware, materials science is one of my favourite things and I happened to be chatting with an expert in this field at the start of the fair on experiments on this front by watch firms.

Notably, IWC is one of the few watch firms with a dedicated research and development arm that works on new materials, amongst other things. It is called IWC Experimental (IWC XPL), which might sound uninventive but I suspect it is a nod to the JPL lab. Anyway, this department works on new materials and shock absorption, and we saw the first of its realised projects in the Spring Protect shock absorption system last year, in a real watch too. But I must confess that Ceralume® is by far the most striking and exciting development yet. I mean the watch is a big fella at 46.5mm and now it retains all the wrist presence even in the dark. Truly a bright idea! Ok forgive the pun there, and someone please stop me!

DG: With how much of a talking piece this material is for IWC, I am actually quite surprised they did not combine it with their other innovation for the year, the ability to “turn back time” with the IWCProSet ™ perpetual calendar. I never thought to ask them why, it would have made perfect sense (at least from my layman point of view) to combine the two.

RC: If I have to guess, Ceralume® and the IWC-ProSet™ were two separate developments. And there was no way for them to tell which one would have been ready when.

DG: Okay, this is a pretty good reason. I forget sometimes how developments in the watchmaking industry count in years rather than weeks or months.

RC: One other thing that I did not think about while in Geneva is the movement platform difference. The Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar Ceralume® uses Calibre 52616 with 7-day power reserve. The other novelties with IWC-ProSet™ use Calibre 82665 with 60- hour power reserve.

DG: Just to reiterate for our readers who might not have kept up with the latest from IWC, the perpetual calendars with IWC-ProSet™ features allows for the mechanism to be set both forwards and backwards. Traditionally, the cams that “programme” the calendar are made to go only forward; this is not just convention because the levers literally cannot go backwards. For IWC, the Perpetual Calendar IWC-ProSet™ is based entirely on gears with multiple functional layers and flexible, extendable and retractable fingers to allow for a very intuitive setting of the calendar both backwards and forwards via the crown. This is of course protected by several patents within the new IWC-manufactured 82665 calibre.

RC: Finally, owners of perpetual calendar watches can, if they wish to, wear them while travelling from east to west. For virtually all perpetual calendar watches before IWC-ProSet™, the only option was for them to first let the power reserve run out then set their watch on the destination country’s time and date before leaving home.

AS: Well, there will be no more of that, at least with IWC-ProSet™ because one can really adjust it any way one wants. I am not 100 percent certain but, I believe the date indications on the Big Pilot’s IWC-ProSet™ models can be adjusted at any time – there is no longer a danger zone where you might have to send your watch in for an expensive service. To return to Daniel’s earlier thinking, IWCProSet ™ does feature a number of material innovations that make all this possible so perhaps XPL was involved. I am thinking here of the LIGA components, of course, but I am getting ahead of myself!

RC: Ashok, since you mentioned just above that you like perpetual calendar watches, what is your take on this new IWC-ProSet™ feature? Are you more impressed by the convenience it offers or the construction, for starters?

AS: Oh, are you sure you want to get me started on this? Well, too late! I will say that my own IWC presentation was late into the fair and I heard whispers about it from some respected peers and seniors. Honestly, it seems like one of the most impressive perpetual calendar developments in years… maybe since certain key examples from Ulysse Nardin and MB&F. I mean, IWC-ProSet™ gets rid of the grand lever! But it retains all the goodness of the Kurt Klaus calibre’s full crown-control! That is amazing stuff.

You know, as IWC itself notes, a key pain point with the aforementioned Kurt Klaus calibre is that you can only adjust it forwards, as far as the date indications go. Daniel, I am pleased that you introduced those ‘fingers’ because they certainly point towards what makes this new calibre special. Aside from how and what they are made of, they also work in conjunction with a programme wheel unlike anything else in conventional watchmaking. I say wheel there but it is really a number of wheels rotating at different speeds…these speeds match up with all the different timings so everything from 24 hours to full years and four-year sequences. To make a long story short, it is this wheel and the fingers (guess why there are three? It has something to do with February) that make the IWC-ProSet™ work. Did I mention that those fingers are spring-loaded?

DG: This is how IWC explains it “At the end of February, the leap year wheel, which completes one revolution every four years, indicates whether it is a leap year. This information is also transmitted through a finger: in regular years, the finger is extended, while it remains retracted in a leap year.” Is the fact that Kurt Klaus’ calibre only allows for adjusting forward the reason why it is commonly known that for older perpetual calendars, it was easy to “break” the movement if adjusted at the wrong time? And that is why many brands incorporate “safety” mechanisms to protect the user from unintentionally destroying their own watch? I have so many questions.

RC: Everything breaks if adjusted at the wrong time, even a simple date watch.

DG: That sounds like a good analogy for life in general.

RC: I can be philosophical at times. I have this joke which I like to make in Thai, but it will not fly in English. I would say, “life is a journey”, but I would spell it in Thai so that the word “journey” reads exactly as “run-in with debt” because “jer” is the sound of the word “to meet” and “nee” is the exact tone of the word “debt”. This applies directly to watch collecting because, well, it is distance running and you get to use your credit card again and again and again.

DG: Well, I suppose with the IWC perpetual calendars you can consider it as value right? Perpetual calendars mean it is accurate until at least the year 2100. So technically, I can buy this watch, go into debt, set it once with the IWC-ProSet™ and leave it on my wrist for the next 70+ years and still have an accurate date at the end of it.

RC: That is most correct, but the IWC-ProSet™ will be of greatest benefit for anyone who travels across continents every once in a while. Besides, you will still have to send the watch in for periodical maintenance after all. This is also why, despite being a moon phase person, I am more excited to see the introduction of the IWC-ProSet™ as it is more useful in real-life settings than the improved accuracy of the moon phase in the latest generation of IWC’s perpetual calendar watch with IWC-ProSet™.

Oh, we forgot to discuss this, right? Regular moon phase watches have a general accumulated deviation of one day in about three years. Astronomical moon phase is much more accurate with one day deviation only after some 122 years. IWC has offered an improved performance of 577.5-year moon phase accuracy since 2003. Now, the figure has been further enhanced to 1,040 years with the IWC-ProSet™ perpetual calendar movement.

AS: Speaking of things left unsaid here, IWC now has four kinds of calendars that are perpetual, if you also count the Eternal Calendar. That means the collector who cares about perpetual calendars now has four reasons to get into IWC! That is three more than the nearest competitor, and this does not even include multicomplications. Not for nothing, there are also three kinds of moon phase indications at IWC! This is basically a really exciting development for the brand, and I can see many opportunities ahead for it. For myself, going back to the points about debt, well I have to plan for how I will approach this challenge without bankruptcy looming in my future!

DG: Which is basically another way of saying Ruckdee’s joke is basically truth. “life is a jer-nee”

RC: Ruckdee is laughing and clapping very hard here in Bangkok! Thank you, guys, for indulging across languages. So, which of IWC’s novelties is your favourite poison? We have first of all the Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar Ceralume® (Ref. IW505801) at 46.5 mm, the Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar ProSet Le Petit Prince (Ref. IW339601) in white ceramic at 43 mm, the Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar ProSet Le Petit Prince (Ref. IW329601) in stainless steel at 42 mm, and, and, and, the Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar ProSet (Ref. IW329602) in 18-carat 5N gold at 42 mm.

DG: As much as I love the inventiveness of the IWC-ProSet™ and all those retractable fingers, I have been saying I needed a watch that will allow me to read the time while on the long flights to Geneva for Watches & Wonders and when they turn down the lights on the plane. And for that reason I have to go with the Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar Ceralume® (Ref. IW505801) and with the 46.5 mm I would not even have to squint!

AS: Steel for me, lads! Honestly though, I have always wanted a calendar watch that I could read in the dark so I can always know the date and time when I wake up on a plane. I am only partially joking there. I do have to say that the 5N gold Ref. IW329602 is very fetching…I will need to go fetch more dollar dollar bills yo, as they say, to make that happen though. Time to work harder!

DG: Just remember that the Ceralume® model, unfortunately, does not set backwards when you wake up on that plane. I think that with the leap forwards in both material and mechanical innovation sets IWC up for an indeed, to borrow a pun, bright future. I am very curious about what happens next with these technologies, I am sure we will see both in multiple collections within the brand. I am envisioning a Ceralume® Ingenieur, case and bracelet, with an IWC-ProSet™ perpetual calendar, now that would be a sight would it not?

AS: I do think that Ceralume® has a lot of possibilities for IWC, far beyond complications. A Ceralume® Aquatimer? Yes please! Well, seriously though, IWC-ProSet™ is like a dream come true, and I am sure many fans of the perpetual calendar will find much to admire there. Of course, only time will tell how all this LIGA wizardry will work out, and of course calibre 82665 is equipped with a silicon hairspring and nickel phosphorus escape wheel so this will all mean different things to progressive and conservative collectors.

RC: For the Ceralume® Aquatimer, XPL must do a marine science study first, to make sure that a glowing blob of green on your wrist does not accidentally make you prey at depths. Ha ha. A Ceralume® Ingenieur is without a doubt safer, given the environment, unless your scientific work is photosensitive! Well, the possibilities are endless for IWC as a manufacture and for end users. Given that we are journalists and industry observers, however, what do you make of these innovations and offerings? Ashok first?

AS: Well, I am dedicating the entire year to innovations, rather than just one issue, so it is clear where I stand. I think collectors on the progressive end will be better pleased, and those who enjoy practical benefits perhaps most pleased! There are just so many opportunities now to find better watches, with all sorts of relative benefits. Now, if you will excuse me, I must go figure out how to make more money!

RC: And Daniel?

DG: I think interestingly with IWC’s innovations this year, they are appealing to both the hardcore watch collector and the casual everyday watch enthusiast. The IWC-ProSet™ solves a problem, perhaps not a big problem, but just the cleverness of the innovation is enough to get fans of technical innovation excited. Then there is just the pure entertainment value of the Ceralume®. Whether you see it on a wrist in a darkened room, or floating in a case, a fully lumed case, dial, strap and hands are just something that puts a smile on any watch enthusiast’s face, regardless of the level of watch knowledge.

RC: IWC has come a very long way indeed, and it is still aspiring to reach new heights. During IWC’s presentation at Watches and Wonders Geneva this year, I was reminded that it was exactly 90 years ago or in 1936 that the brand had presented its first timepiece that was developed with pilots in mind. And look how far it has come from that technically humble but historically significant beginning. On the pioneering frontier, IWC has clearly embraced space as their new challenge. For literary souls, they inspire with the collaboration with the Little Prince, which celebrates the 20th anniversary this year. Then, for discerning watch buyers looking for timepieces to fulfil their everyday requirements, the current lineup is more diverse than ever…especially with the novelties we are highlighting here. So, have fun shopping, dear readers!