You?re spending a hectic week in Geneva covering the SIHH watch salon and jumping from presentations to meetings to dinners to après-dinner cocktails with nary a moment to wind your watch. What better timepiece to have on your wrist for such a mission than a luxurious yet versatile watch equipped with an eight-day power reserve" Read on to discover more about my ticking travel companion for SIHH 2019, the IWC Portofino Hand Wound Eight Days, with a striking sunburst blue dial.
The IWC Portofino Hand Wound Eight Days with blue dial debuted in 2018.
IWC revamped its Portofino series, which debuted in 1984, in 2011, which does not seem that long ago but for an industry in which reinvention can occur several times within a decade, the longevity of its classical design almost qualifies it as timeless. The very first Portofino Hand Wound Eight Days watch was introduced as the flagship of the modern collection, with different dial and strap versions added in the years since, including this very au courant blue-dialed model in 2018, whose release was perhaps a bit overshadowed by IWC’s bigger story that year, the launch of its Jubilee Collection of 150th-anniversary-inspired limited editions. Compared to IWC?s sportier options, like its Pilots (which took the spotlight at this year’s SIHH) and Aquatimers, the Portofino is suitably dressy albeit not shy or overly subtle: the case dimensions are a very contemporary 45 mm in diameter and 11.7 mm thick, with a gleamin...