I’m back from Las Vegas and wore my Portuguese Regulateur Tourbillon .
I lost at Blackjack –only a little but consistently—and Miss Nebraska lost in the Miss USA pageant. But my PRT was there to bring me good luck.
Almost no one noticed, or at least said anything about he PRT. Never at a restaurant or a casino or a hotel, and certainly not on the street. Except two stores did notice. The salesman at Van Cleef & Arpels noticed it right away –but then again they’re a Richemont company. And all three salesmen at a high-end men’s store picked up on it right away. The manager knew what the watch was and then was trying to sell me a $2500 sports jacket ;) Actually there just was a press event for the “Best Dressed Man in America” in Las Vegas; an IWC watch is awarded as a prize –and the store personnel were very familiar with the IWC line. They especially liked the Skeleton Jones model.
Then there was the boutique. The good news is that most of the 2009 novelties now are on display there. The other good news is that the store was well-stocked with most IWC models –it really was the best selection I’ve seen in one place for a long time. And the other good news is that the store really has a fair amount of traffic. There were at least several groups who stopped by in during the short time I was there –IWC is becoming an “in” brand.
But the salesmen weren’t top drawer. I was wearing my tourbillon (with a short sleeve shirt) and my stepson, who was with me, was wearing a Big Pilot’s Watch, Ref. 5004. You’d think they would have noticed. I mean –here we were, two of us, wearing expensive IWCs. But they just stood around.
Finally, one of them came up to me and said “Most of our watches are limited editions or produced in small numbers. If you see something you like, I’d suggest you buy it now”. Quite an opening line. Especially given what we wearing --which I don’t think he noticed-- some really heavy metal on our wrists. And I would have suggested something more effective, like “we just received samples of our 2009 new models –would you like to see them?”
But we tried again; my stepson asked “what’s your favorite model?” He deftly took us over to the Vintage Collection case, and showed up the platinum Portofino.Then he noticed my watch: “what are you wearing?” I said it was an IWC –a tourbillion but produced in limited quantities.
He looked at it, and said “it’s got a different dial. We had one in white gold, some time ago, but it had a silver dial.” I said “I thought I saw it here a year ago –wasn’t it platinum?” He said no –white gold. I was tempted to explain to him how the ardoise dials, like mine, were used with all IWC white gold watches for the past several years, but I deferred.
We next asked to see a platinum 5004 to compare its weight to my stepson’s steel one (a trick question –I know). But this time he said that the only one he had was the Father & Son model in the window. I said “I thought the store samples were really steel”. But this time he didn’t agree or disagree.
I went later into two other stores also carrying IWCs. But this time I had a jacket on to avoid any discussions about my PRT. The best opening line was at one, where a young saleswoman said to me “This is the new limited edition; it’s produced in only 250 examples worldwide”. It was a red gold St. Exupery UTC.
I’m glad I’m home. I next will try to check out the boutique in Istanbul in May, but probably won’t wear my PRT.
Regards,
Michael
