A king who rules over a fictitious realm, a businessman who believes he owns the stars, a geographer who never leaves his desk: having abandoned his own tiny asteroid in search of a friend, the little prince meets various inhabitants of other planets who lead strange lives. IWC Schaffhausen has taken this journey through the universe from Antoine de Saint-Exupérys “The Little Prince” as a reason to crown the new Pilot’s Watch Double Chronograph Edition “Le Petit Prince” (Ref. IW371807) with an enchanting mechanism.
The midnight blue dial with its characteristic cockpit design has a surprising feature: a jumping star display is arranged inside the faint line of the circle at its centre. Each day of the week, this captivating day display lights up a different star in glittering gold. However, the change does not take place in any particular order: the gleaming golden star appears appears to jump at random between the seven different positions on the dial. The stars punched out on the dial symbolize the planets visited by the little prince. They are also engraved in the same order on the back of the watch, to - gether with the name of their inhabitants: the king, the vain man, the drunkard, the businessman, the lamplighter, the geographer and finally the rose. We also find a playful indication of where the little boy with the wheaten hair happens to be at the moment, as well as a portrait of the prince himself, on the reverse side of the case. Incidentally, the owner of the watch decides which star on the dial is illuminated on which day of the week by using the crown to make the golden star jump to another position.
The chronograph split-seconds hand complication is now licensed to fly in the Pilot’s Watch special edition “Le Petit Prince”. Also known as a double chronograph, this mechanism has two stopwatch seconds hands mounted one on top of the other which allow the owner to reliably record intermediate times, even withinthe same minute. The Pilot’s Watch Double Chronograph Edition “Le Petit Prince” is a fascinating variant that combines all the features of a watch designed for flying with an additional poetic element. Its functions include automatic winding, the time of day, date, weekday in the form of a jumping star display, small hacking seconds, chronograph with aggregate time recording up to 12 hours, split-secondsfunction, sapphire glass with antireflective coating on both sides which is secured against drops in pressure, as well as the soft-iron inner case found in IWC’s Pilot’s Watches as protection against magnetic fields. The midnight blue dial underscores the watch’s sporty yet elegant character while the Super-LumiNova®* coating on the hands and appliquésguarantees excellent legibility, even in the dark. The engraving on the case back makes it clear that only 1,000 examples of the watch will be made. The Pilot’s Watch Double Chronograph Edition “Le Petit Prince” is supplied with a matte brown calfskin strap with decorative beige stitching.
