INTO ETERNITY…
This watch, the star of the show at Watches & Wonders 2024, defies time. Its caliber integrates a new 400-year gear and also ensures millions of years of moon-phase precision.
With its Portugieser Eternal Calendar, IWC masterfully illustrates its expertise when it comes to imagining calendars. On its elegant white-lacquered dome-shape dial, this reference displays the data of a secular perpetual calendar. The date, weekday and month are ever-so easy to read on the sapphire-crystal counters. The four-digit year is unveiled in its respective aperture set at 7:30. Inside this watch’s 52640 caliber, a groundbreaking gear, assembled using eight components, makes a full rotation once every 400 years. Thanks to this mechanism, the model takes three irregular leap years of the Gregorian calendar into account over this four-century period.
What’s more, the existence of another reduction gear train equipped with three intermediate wheels pushes back the limits of Moon phase precision. A state-of-the-art computerized simulation was used to finalize this device. This system offers the Double MoonTM display incomparable accuracy over 45 million years for the northern and southern hemispheres.
The watch’s time data is completed by a small seconds and a power reserve indicator. The latter informs the wearer how much energy is left of the 7 days delivered by the selfwinding movement which hosts two barrels. The phenomenal Portugieser Eternal Calendar caliber reigns inside a 44.40 mm-diameter, 15 mm-high platinum case. And, to ensure this timepiece wraps gracefully around the wrist, it’s accompanied by a black alligator strap fashioned by Italian leather goods manufacturer Santoni.
