VIDEO: IWC boss Chris Grainger-Herr is the watch world’s most energetic man

Time+Tide

“Look how fast Chris Grainger-Herr walks!” Andrew exclaims at one point in this video as he follows the IWC boss into his booth. It’s a throwaway line but it’s actually instructive, because Chris would appear to be the watch world’s most energetic man.

His exploits yesterday offer the perfect example. One moment he’s casually welcoming IWC ambassador Lewis Hamilton into the brand’s magnificent booth (as an aside – how on earth do they make temporary display booths with that level of architectural panache?). The next time you see him he’s suddenly up on stage with Hans Zimmer, the legendary soundtrack composer – think Gladiator, The Dark Knight, The Lion King, Dune and so on – as part of a extraordinary private concert that IWC were hosting with the two-time Oscar winner. In between all that? Well, Chris was just cruising through back to back interviews, talking about IWC’s recent collaboration with Pantone to invent brand new colours and reinvigorating the Top Gun range. You’re starting to get the picture, right? This is one seriously busy guy.

Luckily all that activity extends to overseeing the creation of some exciting new watches, too. This year, IWC have marked out the Pilot’s Watch Chronograph Top Gun Edition as a range for expansion,  drip-feeding new variants of the original low-production model into their catalogues. For Watches & Wonders this year, IWC have engineered two new colours of ceramic to use for the “Woodland” and “Lake Tahoe” special editions — with the mossy matte green playing into the forest theme and the glacial white watch evoking the the snow-capped mountains that surround the Lake Tahoe region.

In this video, Andrew talks to the IWC head honcho about a range of topics from the brand’s new focus on colour ceramic to the wisdom of colour-coding your sneakers with your Top Gun watch.  Check it out.