Watch Paparazzi

Athlete Eileen Gu spotted wearing IWC

At the Met Gala in New York — fashion's most scrutinised red carpet — Eileen Gu appeared in a sculptural white and blush floral gown, her wrist carrying an IWC Portofino Midsize Automatic Day & Night in rose gold with a diamond-set bezel and soft pink leather strap. The pairing was deliberate: Gu has been an official IWC Schaffhausen brand ambassador since 2022, and the choice of the Portofino line signals the brand's intent to anchor itself firmly in the haute couture conversation without abandoning its engineering credibility.

The watch itself — most closely matching reference IW459103 — measures 37 mm in 18-carat rose gold and features a clean white silver-plated dial with a day/night disc at six o'clock, blued hands, and Roman numerals. The bezel is set with 46 Top Wesselton diamonds totalling approximately 0.51 carats, adding brilliance without compromising the watch's restrained aesthetic. Power comes from the IWC-manufactured calibre 35800, a self-winding movement offering 42 hours of power reserve, running at 28,800 vph — solid, no-nonsense watchmaking beneath a feminine silhouette.

The Portofino line has carried IWC's dress watch credentials since 1984, drawing its name and design philosophy from the Italian Riviera village. Over the decades it has evolved from a relatively simple time-only piece into a family encompassing chronographs, perpetual calendars, and complications like this Day & Night variant — a complication that elegantly indicates AM/PM through a rotating disc rather than a conventional hand, an elegant solution well-suited to formal wear.

For collectors, the Portofino Midsize occupies a specific and underappreciated niche: it is technically accomplished, in-house powered, and finished to a high standard, yet it rarely commands the grey-market premiums of IWC's Pilot or Portugieser lines. That relative accessibility makes it a genuine value proposition in the rose-gold dress-watch segment.

Gu's visibility at the Met Gala — one of the world's most photographed events — gives the Portofino Midsize meaningful exposure to an audience that may not be traditional watch buyers, precisely the demographic IWC is courting. At a retail of approximately $22,900 USD, the reference sits at an attainable entry point for rose-gold Swiss manufacture watchmaking.