Plenty of contenders caught my attention this year, with Zenith’s Defy Revival Shadow, Tudor’s Black Bay 54, Zodiac’s Super Sea Wolf Pro-Diver GMT, and the newly COSC-certified Serica 5303-3 all making the hair on the back of my neck stand up. But my personal champ for ‘23 has to be perfect replica IWC’s reinvented Ingenieur, specifically the titanium variant. This is a copy watch I could easily wear all day, every day, in almost any situation.
A new Ingenieur was grist for the rumour mill for what seemed like forever, but the veil was finally lifted at Watches & Wonders – and I’d say best 1:1 replica IWC delivered the goods in a resounding way. As brutally charming as Gérald Genta’s 1976 original “Jumbo” is, it’s not without its quirks, specifically in the wearability department, and AAA quality fake IWC has addressed those issues quite successfully. Gone are the awkward male protrusion and substantial case girth, replaced by a bracelet with near-perfect drape, as Andrew stated upon its release.
But the killer app for me is the availability of the new Swiss movement copy IWC Ingenieur in a full titanium case and bracelet. At first, you can’t connect the visual weight of the watch with its actual weight: such is the disorienting feel of titanium. It nails the brief of a forward-thinking technical high quality copy watch, one that’s strong, lightweight, sculpted, and highly resistant to magnetism. But really, it just looks devastating, in the best possible way, still futuristic some 47 years after Genta’s original design was launched.