The Longines Heritage Diver 1967
Longines at Baselworld 2015: inspired by its prestigious past
In 2015, the Saint-Imier-based brand has recovered two icons from its watch legacy. Presenting two globally awaited pieces, the Longines Pulsometer Chronograph and the Longines Heritage Diver 1967.
By Joel Grandjean
Editor-in-Chief
At a time when most smartwatches are trying to explore all sorts of wellness functions, it is refreshing to go back in time to unveil some interesting watchmaking history facts from the early 1920s. Back then, doctors and nurses used their not very user-friendly or precise watches to check their patients’ pulse. Hence, Longines released the Pulsometer, a piece with a chronograph function that facilitated the checking of someone’s pulse in only 30 seconds. The model, which was that year’s star at BaselWorld, has today been revisited. The years do not seem to have altered its elegance.
The other piece that deserves our focus from the 2015 Longines batch was inspired by a 1967 model, as its name suggests – we will tell you more about it in the coming days.
The new version is aesthetically similar to the original, except for the year – a detail that could have been removed but that’s just my humble opinion. The chronograph is aimed both at divers and at all those pseudo sporty urbanites who like to wear measuring instruments. The historical piece features the old pilot watch systems, particularly the serrated turning bezel equipped with a minute-division. Whilst the latter is ideal to calculate the duration of the dive, the tachometer scale on its interior flange enables it to calculate its speed. Needless to say, the trick to mechanical elegance was to be able to produce an in-house caliber. For Longines, that of course meant an ETA movement but it had to be one that had been specifically designed and developed for it. The movement will never be used by any other brand of the Swatch Group, which owns the brand, or by any client brand.
Different brands have tried to use the word “heritage” in order to follow the vintage trend. But it is a word that particularly fits Longines and is, incidentally, the name of the collection that includes those two new pieces. Hard to believe? A trip to the brand’s headquarters in Saint-Imier and you will be convinced. There is a museum that’s worth the detour.
The Longines Pulsometer Chronograph
