Chris Grainger-Herr, CEO of IWC Schaffhausen: “We have created the watch for the next space age”

Three partnerships with their sights set on the sky—The Little Prince, Vast, and Boom—will be the highlights of the Schaffhausen-based watchmaker’s lineup at Watches and Wonders. The partnership with the American manufacturer Vast, designer of the first commercial space station Haven-1, has given rise to a watch specifically designed to be worn there: the Pilot’s Venturer Vertical Drive.

I am passionate about companies that build projects that combine technology and design; this is an integral part of my professional journey and of our vision of design at IWC. I am just as drawn to technology and engineering as I am to the beauty and emotion that design can evoke. Vast excels in both of these areas. The company knows how to bring a pure design concept to life and invent a high-tech product. This duality brought us together, right from the very first moments of our meeting with Hillary Coe, VAST’s Director of Design and Marketing.

The aviation world is a small one, and when in 2016 we chose to forge deeper ties with the industry—including with U.S. pilots—it made sense that at some point we would cross paths with astronauts, as these two worlds intersect, particularly in flight simulators. We subsequently met Jared Isaacman (Editor’s note: In 2024, Jared Isaacman became the first private astronaut, notably flying twice with Elon Musk’s SpaceX), Thomas Pesquet, and eventually the founders of Vast. This collaborative project immediately felt seamless, logical, and aligned with our values. Our space-inspired model: the Pilot’s Venturer Vertical Drive was born from this collaboration. We could never have imagined it without them. It was absolutely captivating! It’s a watch that perfectly embodies what an instrument watch is.