This year’s 150th IWC Anniversary celebration started with an invitation from IWC to join them in Geneva at SIHH to see the Jubilee Collection and to connect with old and new friends from the Collectors’ Forum. I was one of the lucky 20 invited this year. What follows below in Part I are pictures of the SIHH venue and the IWC Booth. Part II will focus on the attendees and our participation in the many events during the week. Part III will focus on the Jubilee Collection. Others have better watch shots, but I will add my few to complete the three part series.
I arrived by plane and train on Sunday before the show started on Monday. My journey began in Newark, NJ headed to Geneva via Lisbon.
Once you arrive at the GVA airport you take the train at the station directly to the Cornavin Station in Central Geneva. It’s a 10-minute trip via train. My hotel is only a few steps away.
On Monday morning each of us headed to PalExpo to begin our jam-packed week of meetings and wandering around the exhibits. As you walk from the train into the exhibition hall, PalExpo, this is what greets you:
There is a security line to pass through first, abandon all things metal, and the pass through to the coat check and registration line:
The first thing greeting Ben Johnson, a fellow American at the show, and me was an opportunity to have a memorial photo of our time at SIHH.
I don’t have Ben’s real shot, but I took one while he posed for it:
His will look much better than mine; the subject matter is better:
On the way to the IWC booth, we passed an area with some smaller independent watch companies and a royal guard for some reason:
The most important objective, however, was to get to the IWC booth. It’s in the same place each year with the same footprint. But, to tell the truth, the 150th Anniversary execution looked and felt much larger.
The interior is dominated by a large Time Machine clock with date numbers that rotate every few minutes from the year 1868 to 2018. The remainder of the space is designed to look like an scene from Boston at the time of F.A. Jones. The walls are brick just like the old warehouse buildings in Boston in days of yore.
First a few snap shots of the time machine clock and its mechanism:
There was a moving gear train driving the numerals:
Front:
Back, we were not supposed to be back here, it’s a VIP seating area…but guess what rules are meant to be broken:
Viewed from the side. Occasionally some smoke would arise from the bottom of the clock:
Off to the side was a Time Machine lever that was supposed to rotate the dates manually, but it was roped off most of the time. Mabe we broke it?
I have pictures in Part II of us trying our hand at it.
Immediately, stage right of the Time Machine was a watchmaker who would engage visitors in conversation about the Pallweber PW on disply or any other topic you liked. Elvira, our watchmaker expert had immense knowledge of the calibers of old PWs and the work IWC can do to restore old IWC PWs.
Here you see our Moderator, Tonny, looking at the PWs on display. Tonny was amazed by the interest shown by the young man to his left. He was wearing a ladies’ DaVinci and was really into IWCs. It turns out it was the son of one of the IWC celebrities.
On the wall to the right of the clock is a private meeting room for the CEO and IWC executives as they present the Jubilee Line to customers.
Panning around the booth you can see the entry looking up to the clock. The long table had glass domes with IWCs from history on display as well as one or two of the new Pallweber wristwatches.
To the left is a saloon for guests to mingle and talk about IWCs new references and have a cup of coffee or drinks.
Although these next few shots will be repeated in Part II, it’s important to show some of our group as we congregated in the booth and meet some really important people:
Heading home at night, Geneva puts on a beautiful display of lights and sights:
As I will say again and again, this was the best SIHH ever. Not only is the Jubilee Collection spectacular, but the show is also a time we get to have one on one time with key personnel at IWC as well as having time to see old friends and make new ones. IWC treated us like royalty even though their main focus was and has to be on the paying customers, those who are making their buying decisions for the year. This may be incorrect, but I once was told that as much as 80% of the annual IWC turnover is transacted at the show. So you can imagine that we few collectors are not the main thing, but they still took time to organize events for us and treat us very, very well in conversations both in the booth and out in the hallways. I know of no other luxury manufacturers who treat their collectors as well. I have a special story to tell in a separate post about the new focus on the customer that is being infused throughout the organization by Chris Grainger, the CEO of IWC.
Link to Part II: The People and Events of the Week: Click Here
Link to Part III: Part III
