One thing that drew me to this watch was the font for the numerals; although they have been around for a number of years, the numerals on the blue background really struck me. I was interested to read something Michael Friedberg had written at the time the St. Exupery models were first introduced:
"The new Saint-Exupéry model has a most interesting dial in my opinion. I recently spent some time talked to Guy Bove, the head of IWC’s design team, about the design elements underlying the dial........the numerals are from the 1936 design of IWC’s special watch for pilot’s, but specially updated (in fact, Guy doesn’t believe in ever using a standard font; all typefaces on IWC watches are specially designed)."
I started thinking about how these dial variations really affect the whole watch. There are numerous editions of the Big Pilot, yet only 3 different fonts have been used thus far! Oh...the possibilities!
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