This article was originally published in the March/April 2022 Issue of the WatchTime print magazine. Photos by Marcus Krüger.

IWC reduced the size of its iconic Big Pilot?s Watch by 3 mm, cleaned up the dial and installed a new in-house movement. Does this innovative model make the grade" We took it apart to find out.

The size of a watch can be viewed as relative. Aside from diameter and height, wrist size also varies considerably from person to person. Then add the consideration of social conventions and cultural differences, which are subject to change over time. For example, in the 1940s, some men?s watches measured only 31 mm in diameter. The smaller and thinner the watch, the more elegant it was. The large pilots? watches built by IWC and other brands like A. Lange & Söhne beginning in 1940, which measured 55 mm across, must have looked as monstrously large as the clocks worn on a chain around the neck of Public Enemy rapper Flavor Flav in the 1980s. At that time, pilots? watches weren?t intended to be a fashion statement, but simply a reflection of size following the functional requirements for military pilots and air reconnaissance officers. As with the IWC Portugieser, only a pocketwatch movement could achieve the necessary precision, which required a sufficiently large case to house it. The size and the offset central seconds hand ensured optimum legibility.
Since the 1990s, the trend for larger wristwatches has surged. When IWC reissu...