A. Lange & Söhne - Marveling
The last time I traveled to Dubai was eight years ago, and back then the "eighth wonder of the world" had just been built: the Palm. Visible from the top floor of the Burj Al Arab, I marveled at the pure luxury of creating 100 little islands to form a palm tree.
Last week, I returned to Dubai and once again marveled at this city, particularly having been greeted in the morning by the sight of the Burj Khalifa praying to the desert sun, the world's tallest structure made by human hands.
But I perhaps marveled the most at the timepiece that A. Lange & Söhne introduced in this city of manmade wonders to celebrate the opening of its latest boutique: the Zeitwerk Handwerkskunst.
Saxon art of craftsmanship
A. Lange & Söhne's line of highly limited watches called Handwerkskunst takes the artistic finishing found within the movements to the outside of the watch in the form of engraving and other crafts. This new Zeitwerk model housed in a 41.9 mm platinum case and limited to just 30 pieces boasts a hand-engraved case back, a hand-engraved balance cock (in the more difficult relief technique as opposed to the regular line engraving of the regular collection), and a white gold, black rhodium-plated dial engraved in the rare tremblage technique. The latter is created by multidirectional movements of the graver tool to produce a sort of large grainage effect. Creating this dial takes one engraver one full day.
Luxurious vintage technology
Yet there is something else to discover: a special technical delicacy deep inside the movement. As if the technical features of the Zeitwerk were not enough, Caliber L043.4 contains something no other modern timepiece can boast: a vintage-style Glashutte lever escapement crafted in hardened 18-karat gold.
CEO Wilhelm Schmid explained, "This was Ferdinand Adolph Lange's invention and he used gold to make it because in 1850 anti-magnetic steel alloys were hard to come by." This style of lever escapement is in fact as reliable as the Swiss lever escapement found in almost all watches today. The biggest reason it is no longer used is the difficulty of correctly positioning the pallets - slightly curved to reduce friction and fully enveloped by the metal. The movement also contains a gold escape wheel, just as Ferdinand Adolph Lange would have utilized in his heyday.
This exclusive timepiece is available at the new A. Lange & Söhne flagship boutique, which is situated in the world's largest shopping center: the Dubai Mall with 1,200 stores - including some of the most luxurious boutiques on the planet. It will also be available in the six other Lange boutiques located in Abu Dhabi, Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong and, of course, Dresden.
Like the emirate of Dubai, A. Lange & Söhne is entirely capable of reinventing itself and improving upon already tried-and-tested technology, finally wrapping it up in extreme beauty. What better place to put the brand's Middle East flagship store than this modern-yet-traditional city of superlatives.
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