IWC Hinged Lug Dress Watch

Every watch has a history, a hidden lineage that guides it and makes it into the interesting and desirable timepiece we are so often in search of today.  Sometimes the lineage is apparent - bloodlines of icons that have resisted change for decades. Other times, a watch is a remnant of an abandoned design process and serves as a window into an alternate future that never came to pass. Such is the case with this special IWC. And by 'case' - we mean that quite literally! Powered by a manual winding Calibre 83, this piece features a 35mm steel case with articulating hinged lugs, originally sold to IWC's agent in Slovakia in 1941 at the height of the Second World War. It is a style of case design popularized in the 1920s and 1930s by manufactures such as Longines, Omega, and Tissot - but rarely seen in the post-war years. Its two-tone black and grey non-luminous dial has taken on a light speckled patina that highlights the gold foil Arabic indices and matching feuille handset, perfectly balancing it with a luxurious post-Art Deco/early Mid Century design language so beautiful you'd almost forget the world was in flames at the time of its construction.  This is a stunning piece that remains quite wearable by today's size sensibilities, and highlights an arm of design-think that has never truly been replicated. With IWC heritage and an amazing journey, all this lovely piece needs is a new wrist to call home. Perhaps its story isn't quite over after all.