If menswear is a house party, haute horlogerie is an evening dinner. One with 14 courses. Posted invites. RVSP essential, that sort of thing. Because, unlike the relaxation of fashion at large, the big watch rulebook remains gospel by very token of the prestige and history and craftsmanship that authored it. The industry has been around since the 14th century, after all, when Huguenot refugees fled France for Geneva and took their craft with them. It's serious work with a serious backstory.
Like all steadfast doctrines though, the rules are open to a little interpretation. And Taron Egerton's IWC has big, big ideas on the current state of play.
For at London's BFI Luminous Fundraising Gala, the Rocketman actor paired a tux (from Ralph Lauren's Purple Label, no less) with a piece that skirts the rules. This is no classic dress watch. Instead, it's the famed IWC Big Pilot Mark XVIII: a robust model that's built for the skies, not the top table.
IWC Pilot's Watch Mark XVIII
Let's break down the old ways. Unlike purpose-built options, the sole function of a dress watch is to compliment formalwear. They're muted. Classic. Often slim enough to sit snugly underneath the cuff. What's more, the main tick of a dress watch is simplicity: good manners decree that a watch is to subtly earn appreciation (no arm cannons won on the back of a Vegas win, then), and as such, many are sparse on the details. Many references from the greats don't even boast a seconds hand.
And yet, here's Egerton, at the most formal of formal events, with a Big Pilot, a watch that's incredibly technical by its very design and one that isn't at all a dress watch, really. There's a date aperture for a start, and a luminescent coating to increase legibility within a cockpit it'll likely never see. And it's sizeable, too, clocking in at a diameter of 40mm (and powered by the manufacture's respectable 35111-calibre automatic movement).
Of course traditionalists may scoff, but it works, despite all the transgressions at play. That's because Taron Egerton's IWC is sly: crisp black dial, black leather strap far from the complex realm of a gym watch. A successful rulebreaker, then, as opposed to the class poseur throwing bins off the school roof.
What's more, it's not alone, as there's an ever-swelling red carpet guest list for watches that don't exactly follow the rule book. The Emmys saw a moonphase from Kit Harington, for instance, while Adam Driver's affinity for Breitling is a firm endorsement of the action watch proper at big film events. The times of the timekeepers are indeed a changing.
Fashion is still the indisputably bigger tent of progressive rules and fluid regulation. Watches, however, are slowly coming inside, too. Welcome to the party, Switzerland. Pour yourself a punch.
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