WatchTime New York 2021 is now less than two months away, and among the more than 25 brands featured at Midtown Manhattan?s Gotham Hall on October 22-24 is A. Lange & Söhne, which is poised to be a major attraction with its widely popular catalogue. Leading the Saxon manufacture’s offerings for this year is the Lange 1 Perpetual Calendar, a notable new complication from the flagship Lange 1 collection.

For context, twenty years ago, A. Lange & Söhne produced its very first wristwatch with a perpetual calendar, the Langematik Perpetual. In the years since, the maison has installed the prestigious complication in seven other models, mostly in combination with a chronograph, tourbillon, or both. And so when Lange unveiled the Lange 1 Perpetual Calendar this year at Watches & Wonders, it was a move many considered overdue, with the perpetual calendar finally getting a solo showcase in the famous off-center architecture of the Lange 1.
The watch adopts the new approach taken to perpetual calendar design that Lange established in 2012 with the Lange 1 Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar, i.e., the use of a peripheral month-indicator ring that advances every month rather than the 48-step cam control commonly used for this function. Such a system is more challenging from a technical standpoint, as advancing the ring at the end of each month requires substantially more power than the traditional mechanism. Along with this ring-shaped display, the d...