A. Lange & Söhne has introduced a string of entry-level-ish watches in the last couple of years, ranging from the time-only Saxonia Thin to the striking 1815 Chronograph in white and blue. The latest to join that small band of watches is the 1815 Annual Calendar that was unveiled at SIHH 2017.
The extra-thin watch is not exclusive to Piaget, but it’s almost synonymous with the brand, given its long history in developing slim movements. It’s 60 years since Piaget rolled out its first extra-thin movement, the hand-wound cal. 9P of 1957 – which means a slew of watches to commemorate the occasion. All share an simple aesthetic modelled on the original – essentially a thin case with a dial featuring baton markers and hands – but the trio of automatics with coloured dials are more vivid than the usual slim dress watch.
Parmigiani Fleurier builds beautifully crafted watches, but doesn’t sell very many of them, for myriad reasons that include branding, marketing, and design. Owned by a charity endowed by a drug making dynasty, which also owns a raft of watch component manufacturers, Parmigiani has been in the red for years but still does what it does, and still does it admirably well. The recently launched Toric Chronometre encapsulates that paradox.
Greubel Forsey claimed one of the most complicated watches unveiled at SIHH 2017 with a grande sonnerie wristwatch, but also debuted variants of its two entry-level timepieces, the Signature 1 and Tourbillon 24 Seconde Vision.
Boasting an incline tourbillon and automatic winding for the second barrel, the Grande Sonnerie is styled in the typical Greubel Forsey manner – large and modern-looking with an expensively constructed dial and gorgeously intricate movement – the Grande Sonnerie wristwatch shows the striking mechanism on the front at 10 o’clock, while the incline tourbillon is at eight. A button at four o’clock acts as the function selector for silent, small strike or grande strike mode.
The Zeitwerk is arguably the most distinctive wristwatch by A. Lange & Söhne, along with the Datograph; the Pour le Merite chain and fusee watches are good candidates but not all of them are easily recognisable. Already produced in a dozen different forms, the Zeitwerk line-up grew one stronger at SIHH 2017 with the new Zeitwerk Decimal Strike, a limited edition in honey gold.
