Before helming IWC Schaffhausen, Christoph Grainger-Herr was already familiar with the brand’s inner workings—quite literally. As an architect, Grainger-Herr played a pivotal role in refurbishing the company’s manufacture, laying the foundations for the future while preserving the brand’s rich heritage.
In a candid conversation with Tatler, Grainger-Herr provides insights into the watchmaking industry including the role of culture in crafting their design strategy, the inspiration behind the new cheap UK replica IWC Ingenieur watches, and the enduring influence of legendary designers like Gerald Genta and Dieter Rams.
How important is culture when planning luxury IWC fake watches’ design strategy? And how does it affect decision-making when launching a new watch?
I think anything that is a nonessential, emotional product that our customers buy for joy, for self-expression, is ultimately very closely rooted in culture. And for us, this is always the starting point. To feel where the global market is at, to feel where the trends are at, you really have to travel, you have to be curious and explore what makes people tick.
That’s why a lot of these cross influences are coming in our watch design. Today, people are reconnecting with the analogue even though they are surrounded by digital, AI and the metaverse. And that really formed the context for the Swiss made IWC Ingenieur replica watches created by Gérald Genta back in the day [1974]. It’s a combination of product design, technical content and a story that you can experience and immerse yourself in. That makes the experience of a product like this so much richer than it just being a watch that tells the time.
Where does IWC seek inspiration?
This year we’re celebrating not only Genta as probably the most famous and talented best IWC copy watches designer of all time, but also people like Dieter Rams, who really was famous for his Braun industrial design of the 1970s and 80s and who created a lot of the inspiration for what we see today: iPhones, iPods and the like. Rams’s transistor radio, his clear inspiration for the iPod, the calculator he designed is still in every iPhone application today.
Similarly, [we are inspired by] Bruno Sacco at Mercedes-Benz, a designer who really took the classical design language of Mercedes-Benz radically forward in the 1970s, creating spaceage-inspired futuristic vehicles, and all new technology as well. That is really a moment we’re celebrating here at the launch of the top IWC Ingenieur replica watches.
Is there one watch which holds a special place in your heart because of an interesting backstory?
I always dreamt of [owning] an original Big Pilot Slow Beat—the original 2002 luxury IWC Big Pilot super clone watches in stainless steel. And when we installed a new generation of software that will give us a global stock view, I asked a colleague to see if anybody still had original wholesale replica IWC Big Pilot watches. There was one somewhere in Asia and a colleague kindly brought it back for me, and my wife gifted it to me for Christmas. So that was amazing. It was a first generation, iconic piece, and to have that new, almost ten years after it was launched, was very special.
