Craftsmanship
IWC Schaffhausen Complications
As one of the world’s leading premium brands in the luxury watch segment, IWC creates masterpieces of haute horlogerie that combine engineering and precision with exclusive design. The brand’s good name is founded not least on the fact that its highly qualified employees master every step of the production process behind in-house movements and complications such as the minute repeater, the tourbillon and the perpetual calendar.
Expertise in Calendar Complications
IWC Schaffhausen is known for our unique expertise in calendar complications. In the 1980s, former watchmaker Kurt Klaus developed his legendary perpetual calendar, which premiered in the Da Vinci Perpetual Calendar Chronograph. More calendar and date complications followed: the perpetual calendar with digital date and month display, calendars with single and double moon phase displays, the retrograde date display, and the Annual Calendar, to name just a few complications that can be found across all of IWC’s watch families. To this day, IWC continues to develop and innovate striking mechanical novelties that amaze and astound.
Grande Complication
Only the most complex timepieces are given the honour of carrying the name “Grande Complication”. The precise interplay of 659 individual mechanical parts and years of experience in the art of watchmaking make it possible to fit so many different complications in such a small space.
Tourbillon: The Virtuoso
For the tourbillon, the balance, pallet and escape wheel are mounted in a tiny cage that rotates around its own axis once every minute. The construction of this mechanism represents an enormous challenge, and results in a filigree work of art consisting of 82 parts and weighing less than 0.5 grams. Only the most experienced master watchmakers are entrusted with the task of creating these works of art and are responsible for them from start to finish.