IWC Drops Two New Aquatimer Models in Honour of ‘Aquaman & The Lost Kingdom’
Late December is peak season for big-budget Hollywood action movies, but generally a pretty quiet time for new watch announcements. That said, along with Jason Momoa’s return to the briny depths in DC’s Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom, IWC has announced its first new Aquatimer release since 2016. Presented in two limited-edition variants with robust 49 mm cases made of Ceratanium — IWC’s proprietary ceramic-titanium alloy — they feature colour-accented black dials with perpetual calendar, digital date, month, and chronograph functions, along with the Aquatimer’s signature internal rotating bezel. In addition to being a timely tie-in to the subterranean world of Aquaman, these two releases are an unexpected holiday gift for anyone pining for a new Aquatimer release.
The Swiss luxury watchmaker may be better known these days for collections like the Big Pilot’s, Portugieser, and Ingenieur, but these new releases are the latest in a long line of Aquatimers going back more than half a century. The Aquatimer debuted in 1967 and boasted professional-grade water resistance and an internal dive bezel, features that have defined the collection ever since. In the 1980s, IWC released the Ocean 2000, a cutting-edge dive watch created in collaboration with Porsche Design, which was rated water-resistant to 2,000 metres, an impressive feat for the time. The Aquatimer collection was refreshed several more times over the decades, most recently for a 2014 relaunch, but has remained mostly unchanged since the addition of a handful of new models in 2016.
As anyone who has seen the film may have guessed, the newly-announced Aquatimer models are inspired by watches created for Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom, the much-awaited sequel to 2018’s Aquaman, by IWC’s experimental division, XPL. For the production, IWC outfitted the movie’s villain, Black Manta (played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and marine biologist Dr. Stephen Shin (played by Randall Park), with prop watches that glow bright red and blue. In keeping with this colour scheme, the new Aquatimers are available in red and blue versions, each of which is limited to just 25 pieces.
The watches are powered by the IWC-manufactured 89802 calibre, an advanced mechanical chronograph movement that’s visible through the sapphire crystal back. In addition to an impressive 68 hours of power reserve, it also features a perpetual calendar that’s mechanically programmed to automatically recognize different lengths of the months and leap years.
Like the other pieces in the Aquatimer collection, the new Perpetual Calendar Digital Date-Month includes IWC’s external/internal rotating bezel system, which is designed to help divers keep track of their oxygen levels and decompression times. Assuring divers’ safety on deep dives, it also includes the IWC SafeDive system, which prevents unintentional changes in the dive time by allowing the outer ring to move exclusively counterclockwise and thus preventing more time from being added. This, of course, would be of no use to Aquaman who — as everyone knows — is part fish, but for the rest of us, it’s the kind of thing that establishes the Aquatimer as a top-tier diver’s tool. Now, the only question is which will come first: the next generation of Aquatimer watches or the next Aquaman movie?
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