“You can only see with the heart. The essential is invisible to the eyes.” wrote Antoine. This is the same impression you may get upon laying eyes on one of these two watches. The Swiss manufacturer has had a partnership with Saint-Exupéry’s heirs since 2006; established on a long tradition of pilot watches, this watchmaker feels tied to the writer/adventurer in several ways. This man, who was also an amateur drawer, inspires them. He who wrote: “Your task is not to predict the future, but to allow for it.” And so the elegance of Swiss fine watchmaking is putting itself at the service of his unfinished dream. By dedicating a special edition watch to this literary classic, the label is uniting its mechanical savoir-faire and technical prowess with the aviator’s poetic imagination, much to the delight of dreamers everywhere. But you’ll have to be quick; this first opuscule, the “Little Prince” Big Pilot is limited to only 270 copies. The second, the “Little Prince” Mark XVII, will only see 1,000 copies released.
Made of stainless steel for both form and function, they closely follow the same formula as IWC Schaffhausen’s other pilot watches. The Mark XVII borrows the aesthetics for its blue minute hand from a control panel: stripped down to the essentials, since readability is the top priority. With a soft iron internal casing that protects it from magnetic fields and glass that will save it from abrupt falls and pressure, it perpetuates the traditions established by its ancestor, the iconic Mark 11, created in the 40s. But here, the casing’s background is engraved with the Little Prince who, his scarf blowing in the wind, is standing on a tiny asteroid, reminding us of his background story as prince of a tiny planet before discovering Earth. The second piece is made of red gold. The impressive manufacturing process behind the Big Pilot gives it two dials that are easy to set with their crown, while the midnight blue dial itself creates a contrast between its cockpit-esque conception and its pure screens. The phases of the moon also make an appearance; here, the moon is again adorned with the Little Prince, looking up at a starry sky from his tiny planet. Yellow gold on a somber blue, the original drawing by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry himself is used. This version will notably be delivered with a reproduction of the novel’s original handwritten French manuscript… get ready to take off on an unforgettable journey.
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