Today’s market is dominated by ever-larger watches. But don’t be taken in by trends, warns our Timekeeper; when it comes to the best timepieces, character, not size, matters

When one thinks of watch design today, typical hot topics are ‘large watches’ and ‘trends’. I will explain why I feel the hype is misplaced, based on the brand I work for, and what I think it is important to pay attention to.

IWC has made 42-millimetre wristwatches for nearly a century, dating back to the 1930s with our early Portuguese designs, and as such is a forerunner of the large watch trend. We design watches for men, and I personally feel that large – but not huge – timepieces look better on the wrist. A Portuguese design would never sacrifice elegance for size, which many other ‘oversized’ watches tend to do. Even in its toughness, an Ingenieur is designed to look worthy of a high-class everyday watch. What is vitally important to me is not size, a poor measuring stick for design quality, but character.

Consider this: a complex, Swissmade dial takes about one year to bring to production. IWC is lauded for its advanced case and movement engineering, which bolster and complement our efforts in the design department; for an example, look at the technical intricacies of the new Da Vinci case and movement. Perfectly engineering the case, movement and dial to produce an understated but intrinsically wellcrafted piece takes time, though, and creating an entirely new watch, including a new movement, takes several years to develop. In terms of reacting to fashion, these lengthy time frames are not ideal. Suffice to say that if IWC is well recognised today among watch collectors, it is because we design and engineer products that reflect our brand, not what is trendy.

Watch design is a world of the minuscule. Many of the details that give your wrist jewellery the character that belies your own personality are less than 1mm across. In terms of the watch you linger in front of in its display case on your way to work, that means that the many tiny decisions made behind the scenes cumulatively form to leave you with a myriad of impressions from “I love it” to “I don’t like it”. When you first spy the watch, you will judge its shape. Gently rounded? Butchered? Precisely milled (that would be the IWC calling). Your first glance has already revealed whether you are looking at classical opulence, a flash in the pan or contemporary traditional styling. If it is a tonneau, or a square watch, you will have caught on to the fact that you are either a watch purist, to whom watches should be round, or a more adventuresome connoisseur.

Moving on to the dial – is it plain or printed? Three-dimensional with applied indexes and different levels of readability? Is it all there or are you looking through it at the movement? Congratulations! You have just established whether you think a dial is the face of the watch or part of its body. To each his own – pardon the pun, but at IWC we tend towards the masculine. To continue this logic, if you are a woman, you may be the type to think that your timepiece should be dainty. Or mechanically complex. Or in more cases than you might expect, mechanically masculine. In the latter case, you will have noticed that what makes a perfect (to some eyes) men’s watch also applies to the perfect women’s watch: good legibility, contemporary yet classically rooted styling, scarcely visible but well-located highlights or details, and a more modern diameter. A sober yet perfectionist rationale.

Or perhaps you are the type to have more than one watch – one for the hazards of everyday living, such as magnetic fields, and one for the evening, where the timepiece might be the jewel in your crown. And maybe even a third, for diving. You get the picture. The point being that, aside from a few millimetres in the mechanicals, the fundamental difference that really separates all these watches is their design. Most people have a watch that has the potential to accompany them down on their search for Nemo and his friends, but a watch is so much more than that: it is an expression of who you are. Do you dive as a hobby, fly your own plane at the weekend, or wish that you did? Was it the cold, silent type or the colorful, summery professional tool that attracted you? Did you choose a metal band so you would not be forever changing that leather strap to complement your shoes?

Watch design, at least in my view and at the Schaffhausen company HQ, is the balancing act between getting all the details in and going too far; making sure the type on your dial (designed numeral by numeral for the collection, here in Schaffhausen) is readable without looking unforgivably middle-of-theroad; giving the case its character without ruining its destiny to become a future classic that you will cherish through the years; making sure that it upholds our vision of what an IWC should be. And, crucially, that it fits your lifestyle.

People tend to say, without thinking, ‘less is more’. My personal opinion is that too little is not enough. Most watch owners will not consciously notice all of the tiny details and effects in their timepiece. But each one will reveal itself sooner or later in the form of “ah, I never noticed that before” or “there’s something special going on but I can’t quite figure out what it is” moments. This is what, more than many other things, will keep our watches looking young, long past their time.

Each watch has its own unique personality. And the one you like has been carefully designed to perfectly complement yours.

GUY BOVE is creative director at IWC Schaffhausen