Page 44 - The Book For Men Spring/Summer 2024

Springing Eternal
A new IWC takes a leap in calendar accuracy
ALMOST 40 YEARS SINCE THE LAUNCH OF ITS FIRST PERPETUAL
calendar complication in a wristwatch, IWC unveiled its latest innovation — one that further pushes the boundaries of calendar accuracy — at Watches and Wonders 2024. Enter the Portugieser Eternal Calendar, a watch that overcomes the last remaining accuracy hurdle faced by every perpetual calendar in the market today.
An already complex and finicky mechanism to successfully execute, a conventional perpetual calendar complication accounts for the varying days of months, as well as the cycle of leap years found in the Gregorian calendar (which is followed by all but four countries globally). Even this is not accurate in perpetuity, however, and all existing perpetual calendars in the market will be inaccurate come the year 2100. Until now. Because, with the addition of what IWC is calling “a newly engineered 400-years
gear,” this flaw has been overcome, in the form of the Portugieser Eternal Calendar.
What’s more, the new watch delivers further accuracy with its moon- phase complication. It’s another setting that is already reasonably accurate in modern wristwatches — with the average moonphase watch only going out of sync by a day every 500 to 1,000 years. But IWC’s latest launch is accurate for a period that could be deemed an “eternity,” with the Double Moon phase display only deviating from the moon’s orbit by one day every 45 million years. Necessary? No, but impressive nonetheless.
In an odd way, this new watch would make an ideal tool for an apocalypse survivor; so long as they keep moving, they’ll be able to keep time accurately long after the power grid goes out — presuming they can find a watchmaker to service the piece every now and then...
44 BFM / SS24 PORTFOLIO
SPRINGING ETERNAL: TEXT BY JUSTIN MASTINE-FROST