The value of a wide, empty dial
By Sam Okafor, London ·
Mostly dial, that's the Portofino. The bezel is a thin line, the indices are slim batons set right out at the edge, and the hands are long and fine. That leaves a broad silver plain in the middle with very little on it except the date and the logo. I mean this as praise. It's the same move a good Georgian façade makes: thin glazing bars, big panes, and the proportion of the openings does all the work.
40 mm and 9.2 mm thick is a lovely set of numbers for a dress watch. It slides under a shirt cuff without catching, and on 20 mm leather it sits flat enough that the lugs barely seem to be there. The 30 m water resistance is the usual dress-watch shrug, so wash your hands carefully and don't swim.
My reservation is the price. 4,950 to 5,500 dollars buys you an IWC name on what is, in movement terms, a fairly standard automatic with a 42-hour reserve and a closed back. A Nomos Orion or a Longines Tuxedo does a similar quiet thing for much less. What you get here is the restraint, the polish, and the confidence of a dial that's happy to be mostly empty.
I'd buy it for a wedding or a job I wanted to look serious in. I'd not buy it as a first good watch, because it's almost too polite.