Tested for You: A Month on the Wrist with the Lange 1, Part II

In case you missed it, pause here, and check out Part I of this two-part love letter to A. Lange & Söhne’s Lange 1 before coming back for the epic conclusion. I’ll wait.

Welcome back! As you no doubt now know, we kicked things off with a necessary primer on the historical context that led to the creation of this legendary model, took our first exit at the original Lange 1 from 1994, and then began revving our engines into the new millennium with the collection’s first moonphase.

Now, things get a bit more complicated as we continue our month-long Lange 1 road trip with destinations at the Time Zone, Perpetual Calendar, and last but certainly not least, the Little Lange 1. Here we go!

Let’s orient ourselves: the year is 2005, YouTube was just getting off the ground, Carrie Underwood won American Idol, and the first Lange 1 Time Zone made its debut. Aside from the new bells and whistles on the dial (which we’ll discuss in just a moment), the Time Zone’s most notable difference from the rest of the Lange 1 collection is the bigger build it needed to house all these beautiful features.
 

Measuring in just shy of 42mm (41.9mm, to be precise), she definitely has extra wrist presence. Did my little 5.75-inch pull her off? Yes, but she was pushing the limits, and candidly, I prefer the oh-so-perfect proportions of the original Lange1 (38.5mm, in case you forgot).
 

That said, the Lange 1 Time Zone’s bulkier size is a tradeoff for the breadth of functions available. Calling all jetsetters – whether you’re sticking stateside and hitting your favorite National Park or making your way around the globe, passport in tow – your new travel companion has arrived.
 

On the Lange 1 Time Zone, A. Lange & Söhne keeps legibility at the core with a circumferential city ring and a clutter-free dial that delivers a single-glance reading of home time (the larger sub-dial on the left side of the dial) and a second time zone (the smaller sub-dial on the right side of the dial). Additionally, when you declare a new home time, a unique synchronization mechanism makes it possible to swap the two different time indications.

With the Perpetual Calendar, we begin ushering the Lange 1 into the modern era. While the complication first appeared in a tourbillon version back in 2012, it took center stage in her own, one-woman show in the Lange 1 QP for the first time in 2021.
 

Like the Time Zone, the Perpetual Calendar necessitates the larger 41.9mm build. So, once again, she’s a little bigger than I usually prefer, but we enjoyed our time together just the same.
 

For the QP, A. Lange & Söhne seamlessly integrates the perpetual calendar without compromising the instantly recognizable design of the original Lange 1, thanks to a specially designed peripheral month ring. This ring-shaped month display is supplemented by the signature Lange oversized date, a retrograde day-of-the-week indication, and a leap-year indication. These precisely jumping calendar displays can be easily read at any time.
 

Another special feature is the two-level moonphase display, which features an integrated day/night indicator. Here, the moon floats in front of a solid celestial, blue sky during the day and a dark blue, starry sky in the evening. If your collection is calling for a Perpetual Calendar, look no further – this one is an instant classic.

I’ll confess – I saved the best for last. In 2008, the Little Lange 1 made her monumental debut. I got to see her a bit grown up, a decade after her initial release, because this special Little Lange 1 from 2018 came all the way from its motherland in Glashütte just to spend a week on my wrist, marking the end to the most epic month of my watch industry career to date.
 

Real talk: The original Lange 1 will always and forever have a special place in my heart and on my wrist, but I found true love in the Little Lange 1. Excuse me while I gush for a moment about this ultimate heartthrob with its monochromatic gray tones encased in silky white gold. She sparkles – all 36.1mm of her.
 

Despite her compact proportions – squeezing in all the Lange 1 goodness with 2.4mm less real estate – she retains each of the assets that make the original Lange 1 so successful: the twin mainspring barrel for a power reserve of three days, the power-reserve indicator, and the trademark Lange oversized date.
 

The only technical difference is a corrector button for the date that is recessed in the case. Since 2018, the newly conceived manufacture calibre L121.1 has been beating in the Little Lange 1 as well as in the traditional Lange 1.

I stand by my original statement: A. Lange & Söhne could have started and stopped with its release of the original Lange 1 in 1994. The brand just nailed it. More significantly, it was the cherry on top of one of the most heart-wrenching comeback stories in horological history. The English maxim of “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it” is one of our few sayings that is rarely wrong. Yet, somehow, A. Lange & Söhne has managed to take a model that, by all measures, started out nearly perfect and refine and enhance it time and time again over the past 30+ years.

For more information about the brand’s pieces, check out the A. Lange & Söhne website.