IWC CEO Reveals Space Watch, Ceralume & New ProSet Perpetual Calendars | Watches and Wonders 2026

IWC just pulled off something rare at Watches & Wonders 2026 — they didn't look back. They looked up. CEO Chris Grainger-Herr joins Andrew McUtchen on the floor of the IWC space station (yes, that's what the booth is) to walk through three of the most ambitious watches the brand has ever released. And before you write any of them off — he did the work to make us believers, too. The Pilot's Venturer Vertical Drive Space Watch isn't just a space collab with branding slapped on a pilot's watch. It's IWC's first-ever purpose-built watch designed from scratch for the demands of modern spaceflight — in partnership with commercial space company VAST. No crown. No pushers. Every function runs via the bezel, because in zero gravity with gloved hands, that's not a novelty — it's an engineering necessity. The design is alien to IWC's catalogue... until you squint and see the Ocean 2000. The DNA is there. The future is there too. The Ceralume® is what happens when apprentices refuse to give up. A luminous ceramic watch – case and all – born from an apprenticeship challenge where the case literally snapped an hour before the presentation. They showed up with three-quarters of a watch and a great idea. IWC industrialised it. The result? A pure architectural material, glowing all the way through. No composites. No plastic. Just ceramic and light. The expansive Perpetual Calendar ProSet rollout is the one that makes the hardcore crowd lean in. A fully re-engineered calendar with geared synchronisation, you can wind forward and backwards across the date change — something the original lever-and-pole system flatly refused to do. Four-digit year display accurate to 2799. Moon phase correct for 1,044 years. Wind it at 6,000 RPM. It won't skip a beat. Oh, and someone almost had to buy a $70 million VAST astronaut seat to get the special edition. Almost. IWC's 2026 is coherent, forward-looking, and genuinely exciting. Three watches. One very clear message: the future is the next frontier. ------------------------------- https://www.iwc.com/ ------------------------------- 00:00 Intro 00:21 IWC Pilot's Venturer Vertical Drive 01:07 Designing a purpose-built space flight watch 02:20 Crownless bezel design for zero gravity 03:10 Reframing the watch for space usability 04:22 Humanity's future in space exploration 05:08 IWC's authentic space connections 06:52 Ceralume – innovative fully luminous ceramic watch 08:28 Perpetual Calendar ProSet features 10:13 Exclusive VAST edition and future plans ------------------------------- Read more articles: https://timeandtidewatches.com Shop: https://shop.timeandtidewatches.com ------------------------------- MB01OTIXZLPJ5VH INSTAGRAM @timetidewatches TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/search?q=timeandtidewatches T+T Shop Instagram https://www.instagram.com/timetideshop/