A new Cabaret Tourbillon Honeygold is joining the A. Lange & Söhne family today.
A. Lange & Söhne unveiled the new Cabaret Tourbillon Honeygold today at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa D’Este. The watch is crafted of Lange’s proprietary Honeygold and is powered by the manually wound in-house caliber L042.1 stop seconds tourbillon. In 2008, Lange introduced the caliber L042.1 stop seconds tourbillon movement, the world’s first, in a Cabaret watch. Since then, the brand has included a stop seconds tourbillon function in several other watch models. Today, the L042.1 is returning to its roots in the new Cabaret.
The Concorso d’Eleganza Villa D’Este is an annual event that takes place on the shores of Italy’s Lake Como. A. Lange & Söhne has been involved as a partner since 2012. While introducing a watch at an automobile concours may not seem like a logical choice at first glance. But it makes perfect sense for the brand, A. Lange & Söhne’s CEO, Wilhelm Schmid, said in a previous interview with Superfluity. “I believe that if somebody is attracted by a mechanical art on wheels, it’s probably a lot easier to introduce them to mechanical art on the wrist. We see this as a common denominator when we talk to people from the car world.”
All in the Details
There’s no doubt that the new Cabaret Tourbillon Honeygold is mechanical art inside and out. The watch’s dial is an extraordinary example of the brand’s exacting attention to detail. And Lange makes out of a single piece of black-rhodiumed honeygold. The dial’s highly polished honey gold frames, scales and A. Lange & Söhne are carved in relief at a height of .15 millimeters. “The precise detailing of all angles and edges sets a formidable challenge even to the most experienced finishers,” according to the brand. Once Lange black-rhodiums the dial, their artisans hand polish the raised gold elements. Lange integrates the gold Roman numerals, hour markers, and date frames into the dial after polishing. In all, the dial making process takes several weeks to complete.
A Distinctive Design
A. Lange & Söhne first launched the rectangular shaped Cabaret timepiece in 1997. The Cabaret case is “a distinctive design which includes the typical lug shape of the Lange models,” said Anthony de Haas, director of product development at A. Lange & Söhne. Günter Blümlein, who partnered with Walter Lange (founder Walter Lange’s great-grandson), to revive the brand in 1990, gave a clear design directive for the Cabaret. He “set the challenge of developing a rectangular watch that is pure Lange,” de Haas said, “resulting in the first CABARET, which was introduced in 1997.”
In the Black
The Cabaret Tourbillon Honeygold’s tourbillon is visible through an aperture at 6 o’clock. Lange painstakingly black polishes the upper tourbillon bridge and the top side of the cage. The technique creates a surface that has a jet-black sheen and reflects light like a mirror from a certain angle.
A Very Limited Production
The Cabaret Tourbillon Honeygold’s hand crafted movement has 370 parts and is visible through its sapphire crystal case back. Lange assembles it movements at least twice to ensure the highest quality and precision. Although A. Lange & Söhne no longer produces the Cabaret as a regular collection, the brand has brought it back in special limited editions over the years. And the new Cabaret’s case design remains true to the original.
“The case construction is the same. The case actually consists of four parts: the glass ring, the bezel, the middle section and the case back,” de Haas explained. Prior to the Cabaret Tourbillon Honeygold, the most recent edition was the Cabaret Tourbillon Handwerkskunst, which debuted in 2021. The Cabaret Tourbillon Honeygold’s case measures 29.5 by 39.2 millimeters, with a height of 10.3 millimeters. Lange is producing the watch in a limited edition of 50 individually numbered pieces. The watch has a dark brown alligator strap with a honeygold prong buckle.