Luxury watchmaker IWC Schaffhausen has unveiled a new flagship boutique in the Chinese capital.

It is the Chinese Year of the Dragon and not surprisingly every major luxury watch brand is trying to get in on the action. All it takes is a dragon anywhere on the watch and the watch is ready for limited edition status.

Here’s IWC Schaffhausen’s entry into the “Year of the Dragon” category: the IWC Portuguese Automatic Edition Dragon Year with a dragon engraving on the rotor.

2012 is the “Year of the Pilot’s Watch” for Schaffhausen-based IWC.  To this end the brand has introduced a paired set of watches — one for Dad, one for Son.

For 2012 IWC is again issuing a watch in tribute of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, a French author and avid aviator.

This year is the sixth IWC Pilot’s watch to commemorate Saint-Exupery — the watch, Ref 387805, is cased in red gold and produced in a limited edition of 500 copies.

For IWC, 2012 will be all about its “Pilot’s watch” collection, following 2011 being the year of the Portofino.

Here is the new IWC Pilot’s Watch Chronograph “Top Gun Miramar” edition, one of five new Pilot’s watches we can expect to see from IWC for 2012.

The IWC Top Gun Miramar watch is a tribute to the place in California where the myth of the elite pilot (the “Top Gun”) was born.

IWC Schaffhausen, the sponsor of the Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing team, has released the Portuguese Yacht Club Chronograph Edition “Volvo Ocean Race 2011-2012″

The Volvo Ocean Race is an exciting around-the-world race covering over 39,000 miles through some of the world’s most treacherous waters.

The Portuguese Yacht Club Chronograph is powered by the rugged IWC-manufactured 89360-calibre movement and is water-resistant to 6 bar.