A. Lange & Söhne were the talk of the town with their new Zeitwerk Minute Repeater, but also introduced a very impressive line-up of other watches as well. The new Saxonia collection as well as the Datograph Perpetual are truly stunning watches, but they also gave their icon from 1994 a little upgrade: the Lange 1.

Why touch an icon? It rarely works and makes eyebrows go up when shown to aficionados. What the Royal Oak ‘Jumbo’ is for AP, the Calatrava is for Patek Philippe, the Speedmaster is to Omega and the Tank is for Cartier, is the Lange 1 for A. Lange & Söhne.

Now, 20 years after the introduction of the Lange 1, A. Lange & Söhne decided it was time to slightly modify this watch. Lange already gave it a try with the introduction of the ‘Grosse Lange 1’ a few years ago, increasing the diameter of the watch to 41,9mm. However, the Lange 1 reference 191.032 that was introduced this week stayed at 38,5mm. The – by many – very much appreciated size of the Lange 1 watch.

Lange 1A. Lange & Söhne Lange 1

At first sight, there is little difference in the new Lange 1 compared to the previous model. However, if you look carefully, you will see that A. Lange & Söhne slightly adjusted the size of the bezel. The result of this small change is that the slimmer bezel makes the watch appear to be a bit larger than 38,5mm while it in reality stayed the same.

The Lange 1 dial remains unchanged and features the hours and minutes (decentralized) at 9 o’clock while the power reserve (auf & ab) is located at 3 o’clock. The small seconds dial can be found at 5 o’clock. The big date, using two separate apertures, is located at 1 o’clock. Although this might sound like a really cluttered dial, and on top of that is the writing of the brands name, the doppelfederhaus construction, it is a very pure and clean watch. Very easy on the eyes.

Lange 1The hands, hour markers and date frame are gold and match perfectly with the pink gold case. However, no changes here whatsoever. Perfect.

Besides the slimmer bezel, the real change is perhaps under the hood of this icon, the hand-wound movement. If you take a look at at the balance-wheel part, you will see that it has a free sprung balance. The balance wheel has no adjustment screws on the outside of the rim, but six weight screws on top of it. Furthermore, this A. Lange & Söhne L121.1 movement has instantaneous date change at midnight. The movement has a power reserve of 72 hours.

Lange 1The new Lange 1 will be available in yellow gold, red gold and platinum. Prices start at €29.800 Euro for the yellow and red gold versions and €42.300 Euro for the platinum version.  We will update you soon on the other novelties that A. Lange & Söhne introduced during the SIHH in Geneva.

More information can be found here.