It's almost sacrilege to say this in the IWC forum, but ever since I bought my first Rolex Submariner, I've started to understand and appreciate the beauty of sub 40mm watches. Since then, my 46mm big pilot has sat in the watch box and shared absolutely no wrist time at all for more than a year. I still loved the look, but somehow it just doesn't sit on my relatively small wrist as nice as I would hope for.
My intuition was to throw the watch on M2M, and the only reason I didn't do it was that my wife loved the look of the watch as well and stopped me (goes to show the importance of a good wife who supports this hobby). Coming from PAMs, I knew that a different strap would change the feel of the watch completely, so I began my search for the right strap for the Big Pilot - starting from Gen IWC (Kauffman), to various popular strap makers and leather material.
Then I came across this last week: a custom-made cordovan strap with Italian Buttero leather lining. Soon as I got it, I knew this was it. When I find myself couldn't put the watch down for a straight week, I knew that MY LOVE FOR THE BIG PILOT IS BACK!!!!
As you know Cordovan has the unique properties of SHINY + SOFT. I think that's what really made the strap. The tight, perfect stitching made it so that there appears to be a hint of padding on the strap, but largely flat. This and the shine of the leather really gives it the feel of elegance and suppleness that I really haven't experienced in any other straps. Personally, I think the feel of the strap goes hand in hand with IWC's design language - manly, simple, elegant.
The thickness of the strap makes a perfect transition from the watch head to the wrist. the strap tapers very nicely to the wrist and makes the huge watch head sit really nicely on my relatively smaller wrist.
The inner lining of the strap is made from vegetable tanned leather from Italian tannery Buttero. Very comfortable. The matte finishing contrasts beautifully with the shiny Cordovan on the outside. It produces really fine wrinkles after a couple times of wear, which looks really quite nice.
This was when I first received the strap - didn't mount it on yet.
Below was another strap that the maker did for me, in brown (hard to tell with the lighting and background). The black strap above (on my pilot now) has no padding, whereas this brown strap had about 0.5mm of padding. It's very subtle and hard to see, unless it's worn for a while, after which the padding should become more obvious. Having this strap in hand really makes me wonder if I should also get a Big Pilot LPP...I think the blue dial would look absolutely Gorgeous with this brown strap!
*Note: the GEN strap is nice, also had the right feel of elegance + manliness. I can't say exactly what I didn't like about it - maybe it was a bit hard? or a bit thick? or the shape? Oh, and It didn't feel quite nice on the deployant buckle, because the buckle was off to the side on my wrist (commonly seen for IWC straps at 155mm/45mm). I tried a tang buckle on it too, felt much nicer.
My intuition was to throw the watch on M2M, and the only reason I didn't do it was that my wife loved the look of the watch as well and stopped me (goes to show the importance of a good wife who supports this hobby). Coming from PAMs, I knew that a different strap would change the feel of the watch completely, so I began my search for the right strap for the Big Pilot - starting from Gen IWC (Kauffman), to various popular strap makers and leather material.
Then I came across this last week: a custom-made cordovan strap with Italian Buttero leather lining. Soon as I got it, I knew this was it. When I find myself couldn't put the watch down for a straight week, I knew that MY LOVE FOR THE BIG PILOT IS BACK!!!!
As you know Cordovan has the unique properties of SHINY + SOFT. I think that's what really made the strap. The tight, perfect stitching made it so that there appears to be a hint of padding on the strap, but largely flat. This and the shine of the leather really gives it the feel of elegance and suppleness that I really haven't experienced in any other straps. Personally, I think the feel of the strap goes hand in hand with IWC's design language - manly, simple, elegant.
The thickness of the strap makes a perfect transition from the watch head to the wrist. the strap tapers very nicely to the wrist and makes the huge watch head sit really nicely on my relatively smaller wrist.
The inner lining of the strap is made from vegetable tanned leather from Italian tannery Buttero. Very comfortable. The matte finishing contrasts beautifully with the shiny Cordovan on the outside. It produces really fine wrinkles after a couple times of wear, which looks really quite nice.
This was when I first received the strap - didn't mount it on yet.
Below was another strap that the maker did for me, in brown (hard to tell with the lighting and background). The black strap above (on my pilot now) has no padding, whereas this brown strap had about 0.5mm of padding. It's very subtle and hard to see, unless it's worn for a while, after which the padding should become more obvious. Having this strap in hand really makes me wonder if I should also get a Big Pilot LPP...I think the blue dial would look absolutely Gorgeous with this brown strap!
*Note: the GEN strap is nice, also had the right feel of elegance + manliness. I can't say exactly what I didn't like about it - maybe it was a bit hard? or a bit thick? or the shape? Oh, and It didn't feel quite nice on the deployant buckle, because the buckle was off to the side on my wrist (commonly seen for IWC straps at 155mm/45mm). I tried a tang buckle on it too, felt much nicer.
)