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Editor’s Note: Watches & Wonders (formerly SIHH) has moved online and Baselworld 2020 is canceled, but that hasn’t stopped watch brands large and small from debuting their new wares. Stay on top of this year’s best new watch releases here.
A. Lange & Söhne is loved for a traditional take on watchmaking that places practical refinements before the likes of flashiness. Ironically, that thoughtful approach translates into exceedingly elegant design that still manages to incorporate incredible technical sophistication. The new Lange 1 Time Zone watch is an impressive travel watch and a perfect representation of this ethos.
The functions, layout and movement inside the Lange 1 Time Zone are new for 2020, but fans of the German watchmaker will recall an existing watch of the same name and similar look. The vast amount of information the watch displays includes a second time zone, day/night indications, daylight saving and more — it even has added functionality over the previous model while presenting an overall cleaner design.
The main time is shown in a large dial (with Roman Numerals) and a second time zone is displayed in a subdial at 5 o’clock (with Arabic numerals to aid distinction). Since both dials are in traditional 12-hour formats, a day/night indicator is present for each in the simple form of a semicircle at the dials’ centers. This helps ensure you that don’t, you know, inadvertently call someone at, say, 2am. (Been there, done that.)
You can further adjust the outer ring with its reference cities, indicated by an arrow at 5 o’clock. An aperture in the arrow turns red for cities that observe daylight savings and remains white to indicate those that don’t. This is a subtle but handy detail, and it’s just one of multiple features that aim to provide genuine convenience to the user — others include easy setting and synchronization between the main time, second time zone and the date.
And there are yet more complications, such as a power reserve indicator (72 hours) and a digital date display. The various refinements and functions are provided by the manually wound L141.1 movement — which is visible through the the back of its 41.9mm case — and it’s as beautifully and painstakingly finished as you’d expect from the lauded German brand.
