Shopping Porsche design Cheap watches

Delve into the incredible 40 years of replica Porsche design There are many car-style watches and clock brands that cooperate with car companies. However, few people have a better reputation for cars and watches than the person with the most famous car name (Porsche Design). Porsche Design Watch is not just a co-branding activity, but inherits the design DNA and philosophy of the company’s founder, Ferdinand Alexander Porsche. There is no doubt that in its 40-year history, it has produced some revolutionary and important watches with collectible value.

To understand Porsche Design watches, you must review many things and start over. In 1963, Porsche Motors introduced its latest model 911 at the Frankfurt Motor Show. The car is the successor to the brand’s popular but aging Model 356 and adopts a newer, more minimalist design language written by the company’s founder’s son Ferdinand Alexander “Butzi” Porsche. Of course, we don’t need to remind anyone of the success of 911. Like James Bond movies, Leica rangefinders and Rolex Submariner, it has always been a true cultural icon, and has evolved, but still retains its perfect original flavor. form.

Form is an important concept for all designers. For German designers following the Bauhaus philosophy, the form of an object is inextricably linked to its function. This connection of form and function guided the design of the Porsche 911 by Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, and the car’s popularity over the past 50 years has proved its success. Porsche (F.A. Porsche) is not content to rest on its laurels, and is unwilling to do it all at once. He made a bold decision to leave the family business and focus his unique design vision on products outside the automotive world. In 1972, he founded Porsche Design. His first product was a watch.

It is hard to believe that there were no black watches before 1972, because PVD, DLC and ceramic clocks are everywhere today. Therefore, when Porsche Design introduced a strict chronograph in a black steel case with a black bracelet, it caused a sensation. Referred to as Chronograph I and Ferdinand Porsche, his design is inspired by the functional advantages of the white dial and the pointer on the black background, which is proven in aircraft and car instruments. 40 years later, the practicality of this watch, the almost strict layout still appears very modern. The only flashing color is the sweeping second hand, which is red to distinguish it from the basic central minute hand of the automatic chronograph driven by Lemania.

As mentioned earlier, Porsche Design has always been the most important design entity, not just a watch brand. In fact, in addition to watches, the brand also produced some other iconic products, such as sunglasses in 1978, which were the first sunglasses to provide interchangeable lenses to civilian fashionistas (Ray-Ban as early as the 1950s) Just created interchangeable lens pilots for soldiers). , Innovative ink pens, shoes, bags and electronic products. Recently, they revealed a new smart phone that can work with BlackBerry (for better or worse). Although the differences in these products may be random, all products have a unique design language-Teutonic, practical and very Porsche.

For a design company without watchmaking expertise, Porsche Design had to cooperate with other companies to manufacture timepieces. Since its establishment in 1972, they have cooperated with Orfina, IWC and Eterna since 1998. There is no doubt that the most fruitful cooperation was between 1978 and 1997 with IWC. For the Swiss watch industry, these were dark years, but at that time Porsche Design and IWC launched some amazing watches, many of which broke new breakthroughs in the use of materials and took full advantage of the Germanic language of the two brands. Attention to functional design.

The first extraordinary product made by Porsche Design at IWC was its compass watch. As the name suggests, a liquid-filled compass is mounted under the dial and movement. Wear it like a standard watch, you can read the time normally, but you can flip it over the hinge to reveal the compass below. The case of this watch is entirely made of aluminum to reduce metal interference with the compass and make it very lightweight. This watch fits the design concept of Ferdinand Porsche very well, is very easy to use, wear and read, and maintain the same distinctive style as Porsche Design.

In 1980, the world’s first titanium watch came out. Like the black chronograph I, today we can easily lose our view of the importance of the Titan chronograph, because we now see countless titanium watches. But in the 1970s and 1980s, titanium was a peculiar material. Its original form was extremely expensive and extremely difficult to use.

Therefore, its use is limited to the aerospace industry. However, IWC has innovated new tools and methods for processing titanium to meet the strict tolerances of the case to adapt to the simple lines of Porsche Design, and was born with an integrated bracelet and “invisible A stylish chronograph with a button. It is one of the most iconic works of Porsche Design, a milestone in the field of watchmaking, and a link to consolidate IWC’s position as an expert watch case manufacturer.

Porsche Design and IWC used the knowledge learned from Titan chronographs to create legendary marine diving watches. The ocean was designed for the German military. It has gone through several iterations, including one iteration, which aims to make mine-clearing divers completely non-magnetic, and these adventurers don’t have to risk setting up underwater mines that are sensitive to metals at close range.

So far, the details of the watch’s special organic core remain a secret. The Ocean 2000 version of this watch is water resistant to 2,000 meters, which is the greatest pressure resistance at the time, while the smaller Ocean 500 version is made for female divers. All versions come with a signature Porsche Design integrated bracelet with a hidden buckle and a Velcro diving strap for the sleeves of the diving suit.

The cooperation between IWC and Porsche Design is of great significance, and the reason is not the revolutionary watch they jointly developed. In the late 1970s, IWC was owned by the German company VDO, which manufactured dials and gauges for many German cars, including Porsche. It is precisely because of this synergy between VDO and Porsche that IWC reached an agreement to manufacture watches for Porsche Design.

At that time, the head of VDO in charge of IWC must be Günter Blumlein, and his decision to cooperate with Porsche Design was attributed to the brand’s avoidance of the difficult times that plagued the entire Swiss watch industry (perhaps BlackBerry will be lucky). Of course, Blurin was also in charge of Jaeger-LeCoultre and was responsible for the resurrection of A. Lange & Söhne, but this is another matter. IWC and Porsche Design parted ways in 1997. Design.

During Eterna, Porsche Design continued the design trends that began in the Orfina and IWC era-simple dials, one-piece bracelets and instrument aesthetics, and the introduction of carbon fiber in the material mix. A few years ago, the Concept Diver developed by Eterna entered the market and was immediately welcomed by diving watch enthusiasts. As a design experiment, it was officially released under the Porsche Design label, called Reference P’6780. It has a stainless steel case that is hinged forward from a hollow titanium case and can be accessed at the twelve o’clock position into the non-locking winding crown. The chronograph bezel is located under the sapphire crystal, but instead of rotating with the second crown, it rotates with the outer bezel. Despite all the functions, the watch remains low-key and elegant, very suitable for the Porsche Design series.

2012 is the 40th anniversary of Porsche Design. As a celebration, the brand released three “legacy” versions: P’6510 (reinterpretation of Chronograph I), P’6530 (updated version of Titan Chronograph) and P’ 6520, the new version of the compass watch. They are all faithful updates to the originals, and some necessary updates to the movement and materials.

Ferdinand Alexander Porsche passed away in April of this year, and his role in the design icon of the Porsche 911 was widely praised. But his legacy still exists in the brand he founded. In order to continue the design of “form follows function”, he is very fond of clocks and other philosophies. When Porsche was 40 years old, Porsche Design was still a young brand. But it has made remarkable achievements.

Although this is a difficult time for the Swiss watch industry, it may be the right time because it introduces a new, more modern design dictionary into an industry rooted in the past. Porsche Design further proves that watch designers and watchmakers are equally important. Ferdinand Porsche has a place in the pantheon of great watch designers. Given the death of the founder, it will be interesting to see what will be brought to the brand in the next 40 years.