iwc launch new limited edition of antoine de saint-exupery watch for the me
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry epitomised the life of the great pioneer. Not only was he an adventurous aviator, trail-blazing his way across new flying routes in canvass-skinned biplanes, but he was also a talented writer with a poetic feel for the human condition, capturing his thoughts and insights in best-selling works that appealed to both adults and children alike.
Saint-Exupéry is perhaps best known for his novel, “Le Petit Prince” (The Little Prince), published in 1943, which has been translated into many languages and, to date has sold more than 50 million copies worldwide, making it the most popular children’s story ever. The French author also wrote about his exciting experiences as a pilot during the days of forging the first mail routes, in the novels “Vol de nuit” (Night Flight) and “Courrier Sud” (Southern Mail).
Saint-Exupéry met his untimely death, aged just 44, in the final months of the Second World War. It is perhaps somewhat fitting for this spirited pilot that he died doing what he loved best and that his last flight remains shrouded in mystery. On the night of 31 July, 1944, he took off on a reconnaissance from the island of Corsica. He was never seen again. Sixty years passed before investigators from the French Underwater Archaeological Department confirmed that the twisted wreckage of a Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft, found on the seabed off the coast of Marseille in 2000 was indeed Saint-Exupéry's, but the cause of his crash remains a mystery.
IWC Schaffhausen, the luxury Swiss watch manufacturer, drew on the life work of this gifted pilot and writer, using the author’s novel “Vol de Nuit” as the inspiration for a limited IWC watch last year. The company has also sponsored a permanent exhibition in co-operation with the heirs to his estate in the largest French aviation museum, the “Musée de l’air et de l’espace” in Le Bourget, near Paris. Some of the exhibits have never before been on public display, even including part of the wreckage of his Lightning aircraft recovered from the seabed.
This year it is Saint Exupéry’s work “Courrier Sud” that has provided the source of creativity for IWC’s latest homage to this talented and charismatic individual. The Pilot’s Watch Automatic Edition Antoine de Saint Exupéry features a relief engraving on the back, which outlines the geographical range of operations in Saint Exupéry’s era. Its production will be limited to the historical number 1,929; the year of the novel’s first publication in Paris.
“Courrier Sud” reflects on an early stage of Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s life. Following his training as a military pilot, he gained his civil aviation pilot’s licence at the age of 26 and joined a Toulouse-based airline, flying the Toulouse-Rabat airmail route and later on the Toulouse-Casablanca-Dakar line. This was perhaps the happiest time of the aviator’s life and included a year spent as the commanding officer of the civilian airbase at a Spanish desert fort on the Atlantic coast. His duties included conducting search and rescue missions for colleagues who had crash-landed and on occasion, even buying their freedom from hostile tribes. He experienced a wild, adventurous time, full of danger and excitement and his experiences there earned him the moniker “Lord of the Desert”. Numerous ideas and themes for his later major work “Le Petit Prince” also derived from this period.
All the accounts by and about him emphasize his great fascination for the Sahara, his respect and skill in his dealings with the sometimes rebellious desert tribes, and the convivial encounters with his comrades, who enjoyed making a stop-over with him. Most important, however, he found the time there, in his simple wooden hut, to finish writing “Courrier Sud”, the very first novel ever to concern itself with the recently realized dream of mankind to be able to fly: “At a stroke, what brightness! The sky, swept clean by the clouds, and with all the stars freshly washed, like new. The moon – the moon, the best of all lamps! Agadir airport glows beneath me in a triple loop, like a neon sign. Find your own way home with your lights, for I have the moon!” (extracts from his working notes for “Courrier Sud”).
The Pilot’s Watch Automatic Edition Antoine de Saint Exupéry features an automatic movement with a power reserve display, large seconds and a date indicator that resembles the altimeter display in an aircraft. The watch shares the same external characteristics of the first edition of the novel: tobacco-coloured dial, large, luminous Arabic numerals and substantial hands, which also glow in the dark. A new feature is the power reserve display – previously something of a rarity at IWC. The silver initial “A” from Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s signature
again decorates the dial, this time level with the date display. The watch is provided with the classic protection against magnetic fields by an inner case made of soft iron, has a screw-in crown, is water-resistant to 6 bar (60 m) and has a convex sapphire glass with antireflective coating on both sides. This special timepiece is worn on a brown, solid buffalo leather strap and an exclusive, limited edition of the novel around which everything revolves, is also included in the price, from the Parisian publishing house of Gallimard. Of the 1,929 watches produced, 1,178 watches will be in stainless steel, 500 in rose gold, 250 in white gold and a single piece in platinum, which will eventually be auctioned for a good cause.
As a postscript to the disappearance of Saint-Exupéry, in 1998, two years before the wreckage of his aircraft had been located, a fisherman found what was reported to be the pilot’s silver chain bracelet in the ocean to the east of the island of Riou, south of Marseille. At first it was thought to be a hoax, as the probability of finding of such a personal effect by chance would be incalculably slim. However, it was later positively identified, being engraved with the names of his wife, Consuelo and his publishers, Reynal & Hitchcock. It had been retrieved hooked to a piece of fabric from his pilot's suit.
