To celebrity hangout The Roof Gardens last week for the launch of IWC.Inspired. The fabled High Street Kensington venue reopened as a private members’ club last year, following a four-year refurbishment, and has since hosted the likes of Bella Hadid, Nicole Kidman and Lady Beckham. Yet it was a trio of other leading ladies that helped the Schaffhausen-based watchmaker introduce its new female-focused content series.

Aimed at championing the achievements of extraordinary women, IWC.Inspired is a series of videos and events that highlight the way successful female entrepreneurs effectively utilise their time. The inaugural breakfast event saw esteemed watch journalist Ming Liu host a panel discussion with luxury skincare specialist Melanie Grant, founder of social networking app Peanut, Michelle Kennedy, and model and television personality turned racing driver and publican, Jodie Kidd.

Franziska Gsell Etterlin, IWC’s Chief Marketing Officer

Michelle Kennedy at the breakfast event

The former rooftop nightclub – visited by the likes of Kate Moss, Madonna and Freddie Mercury in its previous guise – originally opened in 1938 as three interlocking gardens on the roof of the now-Grade-II-listed home of Derry & Toms department store, later to become Barkers. The venue has since been turned into a sophisticated, elegant space that has won plaudits for balancing the building’s Art Deco heritage with the latest in contemporary design – a fitting setting for a historic watchmaker at the cutting-edge of modern watchmaking.

With studios in her native Sydney and Melbourne, as well as in Los Angeles, New York, and London, Melanie Grant has built a reputation for her holistic approach to skin health, with clients including Jennifer Aniston, Cate Blanchett and Victoria Beckham. Social networking app Peanut now has more than five million members, with Michelle Kennedy connecting women across various life stages, from fertility to menopause. Jodie Kidd was discovered on a beach in Barbado by celebrated photographer Terry O’Neil, before going on to grace the covers of Elle, Vogue, and Tatler magazines. Jodie is the owner of The Half Moon pub in West Sussex, and is currently in the process of launching an eco-conscious ecommerce website. All three pioneering women were honoured by IWC for using their time to push boundaries and encourage others to do the same.

From left: Michelle Kennedy, Melanie Grant and Jodie Kidd

“At IWC Schaffhausen, we’ve always been inspired by individuals who masterfully use their time to achieve extraordinary things,” says Franziska Gsell Etterlin, the watchmaker’s Chief Marketing Officer. The IWC.Inspired series is a celebration of these remarkable entrepreneurs who share our values of precision, innovation, and excellence. We are proud to present their stories and highlight IWC’s commitment to creating timepieces that resonate with individuals of vision and purpose.”

IWC’s relationship with women’s watches stretches as far back as the 1870s, when company founder F. A. Jones – IWC stands for the International Watch company – began developing prototypes for ladies’ pocket watches. Whereas wristwatches for men didn’t become commonplace until after the First World War, women began wearing bracelet watches as jewellery from the end of the 19^th century, with IWC’s first appearing around 1900. The company’s archives from the first half of the 20^th century are littered with women’s watches with small gold cases and Art Deco styling, powered by ultra-thin movements.

Michelle Kennedy

Jodie Kidd

Melanie Grant

While, in the 1970s and ’80s, the influx of inexpensive, battery-powered watches from the Far East decimated swathes of Switzerland’s traditional watch industry, IWC continued to manufacture watches for women – models like the barrel-shaped Reference 7400 and Da Vinci Lady Chronograph. The Portofino collection also included smaller, slender models for slimmer wrists, while the brand was almost unique for producing women’s versions of its iconic pilot’s watches.

Spearheading the trend for smaller case sizes, this year IWC launched a slimmed-down version of its famous integrated sports watch, the Ingenieur. IWC’s original Ingenieur, designed by legendary watch designer Gérald Genta and nicknamed ‘Jumbo’, was resurrected as the new-but-faithfully-retro Ingenieur Automatic 40mm in 2023. We now get three daintier-proportioned 35mm models, available in stainless steel with either a black or silver dial, or 18k 5N gold with a gold-coloured dial.

The Ingenieur 35 isn’t just smaller – it’s also thinner, the case depth having been slimmed from 10.8mm to 9.4mm. To accommodate the reduced size, IWC has had to equip the watch with a new movement – featuring circular graining and a gold-plated oscillating weight – which is visible through an exhibition caseback (the first time an entire Ingenieur family has been released with sapphire-crystal casebacks).

The decorative dials of the Ingenieur has become something of a hallmark, consisting of small lines and squares in a geometric pattern. The appliques on all three models are mounted by hand and filled with Super-LumiNova®. The 18-carat 5N gold version features solid gold appliques and gold- plated hands, while the two stainless steel models have steel appliques and rhodium-plated hands.

Ingenieur Automatic 35 IW324903, £34,400

Ingenieur Automatic 35 IW324906, £8,900

With its distinctive five bezel screws, integrated bracelet and contrasting satin-polished surfaces, the Ingenieur 35 is as faithful an Ingenieur reissue as its larger counterpart, just conceived for daintier tastes and more elegant wrists. For women, like last week’s panellists, who refuse to make a compromise between style and substance.

Visit iwc.com