The new edition of Watches and Wonders is back, and all participating brands can showcase the latest watches in physical form at their booths, with the luxury watchmaking representative A. Lange & Söhne opting for a more personalized approach with individual meetings instead of traditional displays, unveiling new products at a section called “Touch & Feel” at the brand’s booth. The biggest highlight of the booth is a gigantic new Odysseus watch, visible from afar and reaching up to 5 meters high. It’s no wonder that this year’s Odysseus watch has become one of A. Lange & Söhne’s most talked-about new releases.
The Odysseus watch, launched in 2022, is a brand new design in the same series following the new models introduced in 2019 and 2020. What’s more, this time it breaks convention by using a material never before seen in A.Lange & Söhne – titanium.
The Odysseus watch made of titanium has the same size, specifications, and movement as the previous two generations, with a diameter of 40.5mm and equipped with the L155.1 Datomatic automatic winding movement modified from the L086.1, providing up to 50 hours of power reserve when fully wound. Therefore, the new generation of Odysseus watches will focus on the appearance.
The new Odysseus watch features a new ice blue dial and a proprietary dial structure, mainly reflected in the decoration of the hour ring. Careful observation will reveal its exquisite twisted groove extending to the hour markers, creating shadows between the silver-white minute markers, creating an embedded effect. The curved line pattern reappears above the scale of the small seconds dial, and the irregular inner ring structure makes the watch more three-dimensional and deep, enhancing the clarity of the dial.
In terms of layout, among the various black Arabic numeral scales, only the number “60” is highlighted in red; the striking hour and minute hands adopt the Lange’s iconic long spear shape, highlighting the watch’s sporty features. Like the bar-shaped recessed blocks, the hour and minute hands are made of polished 18K white gold and injected with luminescent material; the large date display at 3 o’clock and the large day display at 9 o’clock are also retained, adjustable quickly by the dual side crowns.
It is worth noting that in the past, A.Lange & Söhne, which usually matched Odysseus with high-end materials such as crocodile leather straps, has now paired this titanium new model with the same five-link bracelet structure as the steel and gold models, with a clasp design that can be extended by up to 7mm – allowing for easy removal of links by pressing the small hidden circular button on the inside of the link with the tool provided with the watch when the bracelet is too long. Additionally, what is different this time is that A.Lange & Söhne has created subtle, irregular patterns on the sides of the case, lugs, and bracelet surface similar to the granular texture on the main dial, giving the appearance a more elegant and delicate texture.
There is no denying that for top watch manufacturers who are most committed to traditional craftsmanship, using titanium to make new watches is indeed a significant “psychological barrier”, especially for traditional high-end watch brands like A.Lange & Söhne, it is even more rare. However, this may not necessarily be a bad or negative image, but at the very least the brand new Odysseus is limited to only 250 pieces, and the watch body is 43% lighter than the usual stainless steel, which means that in the future we may still see more possibilities from A.Lange & Söhne.
資料及圖片來源：Courtesy of A. Lange & Söhne
