The German watch brand A. Lange & Söhne was revived in 1994 but only opened their first boutique ten years ago in 2007. The boutique is in Dresden, a short drive from the brand’s headquarters in Glashütte. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of this boutique, Lange has launched a limited edition time-only watch in the 1815 collection. The A. Lange & Söhne 1815 Dresden Boutique 10th Anniversary Edition watch is identical to the standard 1815 but has a hinged, engraved cover for a caseback.
The A. Lange & Söhne 1815 Dresden Boutique Edition is limited to ten watches each in pink gold and white gold. The A. Lange & Söhne 1815 time-only is a classically sized dress A.Lange & Sohne Glashutte I/Sa Watch with a 38.5mm case and a traditional dial layout with a sub-seconds dial at 6:00. The case is built with a traditional three-part construction and has a polished bezel, brushed case-band, and polished back. The alternating finishes give the watch the right balance between some visual pop and understated elegance when on the wrist.
The dial is solid silver and the heat-blued hands contrast richly against it. As mentioned above, unique to the Dresden Boutique edition is the “dust cover” caseback – also called a cuvette. Likely inspired by vintage pocket watches, the cuvette is hinged at the 12:00 end of the dial and is engraved with a relief of the Dresden Frauenkirche, a well-known landmark. The Frauenkirche wasn’t selected out of mere convenience, it was chosen because the Lange boutique in Dresden is actually adjacent to this landmark and Ferdinand Lange actually worked in Dresden before moving the brand’s facilities to Glashütte.
The watch is powered by the caliber L051.1, a hand-wound, time-only movement with a Nivarox balance spring, German silver main plate and bridges, swan-neck regulator, and 55 hours of power reserve. As can be expected of Lange, the movement is finished to a superlative standard. The three-quarter plate is Geneva striped, the balance cock engraved, and there are of course plenty of signature gold chatons held in place by blued screws. All the decoration is done by hand.
Like the chronograph sibling, I have a soft spot for the 1815 time-only. The addition of the hinged cuvette is not revolutionary, but is a nice way to commemorate a milestone for the brand and its boutique. With such a small run, I’m sure the watches will find a wrist (or safe) fairly quickly. The A. Lange & Söhne 1815 Dresden Boutique 10th Anniversary Edition A Lange Sohne Watch Straps ships on an alligator strap with a pin buckle and has a price of €29,900 including VAT. alange-soehne.com
The answer, in my opinion, is that overall weakness in the more mainstream industry is directly hurting the smaller independents. For them to survive and find clients, they need to require the huge brands performing the hard work to turn individuals into A Lange & Sohne Watches lovers, and then, second, to allow them to get a pleasant buying and ownership experience. Most watch customers who collect watches out of luxury independent brands do this only after “graduating” from products in the larger brands. A weaker mainstream business unable to capture the hearts and minds of consumers (and give them a high quality purchase and ownership experience) is not likely to breed a lot of men and women who then go on to want the experience of a high-end independent brand.Let’s talk about goods today, because the hot trends and patterns we found in watches at SIHH 2017 will be of interest to a lot of people. Many of the displaying brands appeared to have a good idea of how to catch the center of “the missing marketplace,” that is the usa. To do so, the business should make attractive, functional watches such as sport watches and some complex with concentrated functionality and non-precious cases. A whole lot of brands are doing just that ranging from “homes” for example Cartier to Baume & Mercier, Montblanc, and Ulysse Nardin. Again, “classic-feeling” sport watches in non-precious alloys are performing much better in sales that lots of other kinds of watches these days. While not all new releases are amazing, more than a lot of them are worthy of critical attention by customers.