the latest highlight in blue: the Big Pilot’s Watch Annual Calendar Edition “Le Petit Prince” (Ref. IW502703) is limited to 250 pieces. This timepiece a white gold case not only has a blue dial but, for the first time in the history of IWC, also a blue movement: the IWC-manu factured 52850 calibre is visible through the sapphire- glass case back and gets its distinctive colour from a coating with various metallic oxides.
And some technical info about the production of the blue dials :
IWC often uses what is called physical vapour deposition (PVD) to manufacture blue dials. The PVD procedure
allows extremely dense coatings to be created, which are only fractions of a micrometre thick. The dials are first galvanically nickel-plated and gold-plated. The actual PVD coating then follows, where they are steamed in a vacuum chamber with gas eous metal ions. The final colour depends on the specific process properties and the coating thickness, among other things. As an alternative to PVD coating, special paints are also used to achieve the blue colour on certain models.
and the back
