HANDS-ON: The IWC Portugieser Perpetual Calendar 42 Boutique Edition would make Kurt Klaus smile
The perpetual calendar is widely recognised as one of IWC’s greatest strengths. Back in the 1980s, legendary watchmaker Kurt Klaus was challenged to develop a new version of this highly intricate mechanism. He responded with an ingenious upgrade that essentially streamlined the complication by doing away with the correctors and enabling the calendar functions to be manipulated via the crown. The new IWC Portugieser Perpetual Calendar 42 Boutique Edition offers an even more refined expression of this idea to deliver a simple solution to a complicated problem. Just like Kurt Klaus would have wanted. The case As the name suggests, the case of this latest perpetual calendar measures 42mm in diameter and sits a modest 13.8mm off the wrist. It’s by no means a petite watch, but is remarkably compact if you consider the level of complication on offer. The compact case proportions are an exciting step by IWC to produce slightly smaller perpetual calendar watches and make them more accessible in the process. The lugs are elegantly tapered to ensure the more modest specifications on paper match what you are feeling on your wrist. It’s not too big and not too small – the stuff of Goldilocks’ dreams. The…
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Being quarantined in our homes this year has encouraged us to binge more series and films than ever before. Fortunately, it’s the golden age of TV dramas, which means you don’t have to re-watch an episode of The Office or Seinfeld for the 100th time. One such show that has recently taken Netflix by storm is The Queen’s Gambit, which, at the time of writing, has been viewed by 62 million households in its first 28 days of release, making it the streaming channel’s most popular limited series ever. For watch enthusiasts, however, any checkerboard manoeuvres were eclipsed when protagonist Beth received a gift from her adoptive mother: a Bulova watch. During the series, Beth — escorted by her mother, Alma — travels around the United States to enter various chess tournaments. A prodigy introduced to chess at the age of nine, Beth has some serious game. She rarely finds a mind capable of outwitting her on the board, which means that more often than not she scoops the prize money awarded to the tournament champion. While it was not considered appropriate for most girls to play chess during the ’60s and ’70s – at least not to those with traditional expectations and…
Editor’s note: Sometimes we can miss things that are right in front of us. That’s how it is with the Longines Master Collection – which happens to be one of the bestselling lines for the brand. Watchmaking know-how does not just happen overnight, it is acquired over decades and centuries, and Longines offers such a rich history for new consumers to leverage – bringing quality and value-driven offerings to modern buyers looking for something classic on the wrist. Time+Tide always strives to bring awareness to all quality watch offerings, so it would be remiss if we didn’t remind you of the value found in the Longines stable. Let’s revisit the time Andrew personally went to see the watch in the metal, and how pleasantly surprised he was with the lineup … When it comes to Longines’ yearly new releases we are like heatseeking missiles for the vintage fire the brand has at its disposal – few archives are as deep or as versatile as Longines, and it means they can pick and choose between adventurers’ watches, avant-garde designs, classic dress … the options are almost endless and they impress with regularity. But we rarely look at the everyday collections that,…