Introducing The Lange & Söhne 1815 Rattrapante Perpetual Calendar In White Gold, And The Lange 1 Timezone In Platinum
Vintage wines in new bottles.
As we have recently discussed, there are a lot of different ways of pursuing perfection and right now, one of the most high visibility ways to proceed, is, especially if you’re an independent, to make a hand-wound, time-only watch (or one with a small complication like a power reserve) which has a distinctive movement architecture, and which is finished to within an inch of its life. The somewhat more traditional scale of values in watchmaking has tended to take a high grade, time-only watch as a starting point (with an exception to that rule being watches intended for very high precision, including deck watches, and some kinds of chronometers) and to increase the value and interest of a watch by increasing its complexity.
The latter course is one steered consistently by relatively few brands and they are ones with very recognizable names – Patek Philippe is the obvious example, with its apparently unlimited ability to produce extremely complex watches and moreover, ones which often are very new takes on classic complications. The Grandmaster Chime, which among other things is a date repeater (the first I’d ever heard of) is a case in point. Another example is A. Lange & Söhne. When the company launched its first collection in decades, in 1994, there were four watches, and, arguably, none of them were simple although all of them were hand-wound. They were the Arkade (billed at the time as a ladies’ watch) with big date, the Saxonia with big date, the Lange 1, with big date and an asymmetrical dial design supported by a movement with a very unusual layout, and the Tourbillon Pour le Mérite. Since then, Lange has created its fair share of simple watches, both hand-wound and automatic, but there is a part of the company’s character which I think is inextricably intertwined with the pursuit of complications per se as a fundamental part of its identity.
Lange has just announced two new versions of two of its most complicated watches – the 1815 Rattrapante Perpetual Calendar, now in white gold with a pink gold dial, and the Lange 1 Timezone, now in platinum.
The Lange 1 Timezone In Platinum
Let’s take the second one first. If you’d asked me last week if the Lange 1 Timezone in platinum already existed, I would almost certainly have said Yes without hesitation – platinum, with its unearthly sheen and unmistakeable heft in the hand and on the wrist, is a metal which has always seemed to me to be a natural for Lange. It has the reassuring mass and solidity that seem to be natural and tactile expressions of the reassuring solidity and almost stolid conservativism of design that gives Lange its charm (I feel less and less sure of saying anything absolute these days about what a brand will or will not do, but I feel as if it will be a very cold day in hell before ALS partners with a superhero franchise – not that there’s anything wrong with that).
The Lange 1 Timezone has been around for a surprisingly long time – it was first released in 2005 and then, in 2020, a new version was released, with the day/night indicators shifted from offset subdials, to a central position in the larger home time dial and the smaller local time dial. An indication for those time zones that observe Daylight Saving Time was added as well, via a small window above the local time subdial’s city pointer, which shows red when the city in question is in a DST time zone.
The Lange 1 Timezone at release in 2020 was available in white gold, red gold, and yellow gold but until now, it’s never been available in platinum. In both iterations, the Lange 1 Timezone is one of Lange’s most popular models and its slightly baroque, idiosyncratic design and unabashed appeal to a love of complexity seem very well balanced by that most austere and elevated of precious metals.
The Lange 1 Timezone in Platinum: case, unchanged from previous models at 41.9mm x 10.9mm. Sapphire crystals front and back, with solid silver dial and rhodium plated gold hands and applied markers. Movement, Lange caliber L141.1, hand-wound, in untreated German silver with hand engraved balance cock and intermediate wheel cock, adjusted in five positions, running at 21,600 vph in 38 jewels. Functions, home time and local time, each with day/night indicator; small seconds with stop seconds; city ring for for the adjustment of local time zone and big date for home time zone; power reserve. Platinum buckle.
The 1815 Rattrapante Perpetual Calendar, In White Gold, With Pink Gold Dial
Lange & Söhne has created its own versions of all of the classic high complications – the perpetual calendar, the repeater, and the rattrapante chronograph, but the first time that the company ever released a stand-alone rattrapante calendar was pretty recently. The 1815 Rattrapante wasn’t announced until 2020, although by then, Lange had already released a rattrapante complication in its Grande Complication wristwatch, and of course had released the Double Split (split seconds and split minutes) and Triple Split (split seconds, minutes, and hours) complications as well.
The 1815 Rattrapante Perpetual Calendar in pink gold is, like the Timezone in platinum, a long-standing member of the Lange family but in a new case metal. The original version was released in 2013, and the new version joins two existing models in the collections – one in platinum and one in pink gold, both with silver dials.
The 1815 Rattrapante Perpetual at launch was one of the most firmly traditional watches in Lange’s collections and at first glance, you might accidentally mistake it for the Grande Complication, which is slightly larger and obviously far more complex. Still, the 1815 Rattrapante Perpetual is in an unbroken lineage, design-wise, from the Grande Complication and highly complex pocket watches of the late 19th and early 20th century and in contrast to the rather radical departure from business as usual that the Lange 1 was (albeit in 1994) it could easily have come down to us in a time capsule from the 1920s (or even the 1930s, if you’d thought to put your order in before Black Friday in 1929).
One of the most beautiful versions of the 1815 Rattrapante Perpetual Calendar was the Handwerkskunst model, which was released in 2017. If the original models were regal in their reserve and in their appeal to tradition, the Handwerkskunst model was downright Rococo, with its deep blue enameled dial and hinged caseback, decorated with a portrait of the horned Greek moon goddess, Selene, with her iconic torch.
The newest model is a little less grandiose but it is very much a natural extension of the existing two models, and the pink gold dial and white gold case give it a combination of cool classicism and warm tones that seem a little less formal and a little more approachable than either of the two current models. The combination takes a design which has always seemed to me deliberately evocative of the pre-wristwatch era, and transformed it into something more contemporary (although even in this configuration I don’t think anyone would call it an exactly avant-garde design).
The watch world has for the last couple of decades, been somewhat obsessed with and driven by a search for novelty – and of course Lange has had its fair share of previously unseen complications. But there is something deeply reassuring about seeing a reliable, tried and true design get an unobtrusive but attractive refresh – it speaks to a company that knows the value of its own past, which is not something you can say about every luxury watch brand nowadays.
The Lange 1815 Rattrapante Perpetual Calendar, white gold with pink gold dial: case, white gold, 41.9mm x 14.7mm, sapphire crystals front and back, with indications for the time, small seconds; rattrapante chronograph with seconds and minute counters; perpetual calendar with day, date, month, high-precision moonphase, and leap year; power reserve indicator. Movement, Lange caliber L101.1, hand-wound, running at 21,600 vph in 43 jewels, 32.6mm x 9.1mm, untreated German silver plates and bridges with hand-engraved balance cock; adjusted to five positions. Limited edition of 100 pieces, Lange boutique exclusive.
Price for both watches, by request to Lange.