Missed Reviews: The 3706 “Fliegerchronograph” is a Reminder of What IWC Used to Be

The IWC Fliegerchronograph Ref. 3706 is not yet a vintage watch by most definitions, but it might as well be. It comes from a time that we’re now long past in the watch community, before the luxification of IWC, the resurgence of interest in midcentury design among watchmakers, and certainly predating the fixation on in-house movements. It’s easy to think of the time between 1994 and 2005, the years during which the 3706 was in production, as a more innocent period. These years largely predate social media, and what many would consider the invention of modern watch enthusiast culture. Of course, there’s a pretty good chance the much smaller number of people who were devoted watch aficionados in the 90s were saying much the same thing about the 80s, and that ten years from now we’ll look back on these years and wonder how we all could have been so naive, crazy, or preoccupied with whatever it is we’re collectively obsessing over at the moment. That’s the nature of the passage of time, right? 

Still, the 3706 stands in fairly stark contrast to the watches that are made by the very same brand in 2021. At the time of this writing, I’m in the fortunate position to have a modern IWC watch in for review, and putting them side by side, and certainly holding each in the hand and strapping them to your wrist, you feel IWC’s evolution in a very real way. IWC, of course, isn’t the only brand to shift from tool watches, to luxury-tool watches, to what some would call full-on luxury watches over the course of a roughly 20 year period, but knowing where IWC sits today helps to underscore the simple charm of a watch like the 3706.