A 170 years ago the flow of the little silver mining town’s history in German Saxony changed forever: Glashütte witnessed the opening of the first watchmaking workshop by Ferdinand Adolph Lange. He did it with a generous loan from the Saxon government, as he successfully convinced officials to establish the watchmaking industry in the impoverished mining settlement that ran out of ore. He took the Swiss example that he studied during his travels in the Jura previously: specialists manufacture components which are assembled by the watchmaker. This results in a viable eco-system with specialists, competition and therefore the drive for innovation.
The colourful history of the watch industry in Glashütte, with all professions participating in the creation of beautiful timepieces are at the focus of the “360° – The Facets of Glashütte Original” travelling exhibition announced in Basel. Visitors are given the chance to immerse themselves in Glashütte’s origins, the brand’s present and their vision for the future. You can meet artisans and try your skills in the white working robe, too. The show will pop-up in various cities all over the planet throughout 2015.
Glashütte Original showcased elegant novelties and new versions of existing models.
Senator Cosmopolite
The highlight of this year’s presentation was clearly the Senator Cosmopolite which brings multiple technical developments introduced in the 2012 Grande Cosmopolite Tourbillon into the Senator product family.
One of these is the easy-to-use traveller time function. Local time is shown by nicely blued poire-shaped central hands, adjusted by the crown at 4 o’clock. Home time appears in the sub-dial in the North and is set by the crown at 2. When personalizing the timepiece you first need to tell the watch what your home zone is – this is performed initially and only once. Both time zones are identified by the IATA flight airport codes – the same 3-letter abbreviations you see on your boarding passes – which are displayed in two apertures at 8 o’clock. You have all 37 time-zones on the discs including those with 30 and 15/45 minute difference to GMT in distinct colours. The great news is that when you travel, you only need to adjust the new local time with the crown at 4 forward (when travelling to the East) or backward (when heading to West) – this implies the rotation of the time-zone code too.
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Glashütte Senator Cosmopolite
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Daytime and night-time in both time-zones is also shown. For the local time it is obvious with the dedicated sub-dial, while for the home zone a “binary” visualization is utilized: a small aperture in the home-zone dial with white (day) or black (night) indication. Date is displayed in the large opening at 4.
All these hands and markers are controlled by a new automatic in-house movement, Calibre 89-02. The barrel spring stores the energy generated by the de-centralized and cut-out rotor for 72 hours. Remaining power is displayed in the home-zone sub-dial. The timepiece can be purchased in red or white gold.
Senator Observer
A new dark version of Senator Observer also emerged in 2015. It is a classical “deck-watch”, which was used in the past together with marine chronometers to determine the ship’s actual position on the sea. Although the dial was dressed in black, it is highly legible thanks to the clear design as well as the amount of Super-LumiNova used to enlighten the markers and hands. In contrary to most observation watches, this one is fitted with an in-house automatic movement, the Calibre 100-14.
PanoMaticLunar and PanoReserve
Last year Glashütte Original announced the PanoMaticInverse, which positioned the traditionally backside components to be visible in the front. In 2015 two new models join the family, the PanoMaticLunar with moon-phase display, and the PanoReserve with remaining energy indication. Both were introduced in stainless steel case + silky blue dial, and 18 ct red gold case + “mysterious” black dial combinations. Dials are produced in the company’s Pforzheim manufacture.
The automatic Calibre 90-02 was incorporated in PanoMaticLunar, while PanoReserve was given the hand-wound Calibre 65-01. The precision of both in-house movements can be fine-tuned manually with the “swan-neck” spring visible in the back. Rate symmetry is regulated by the left neck, and the effective length of the hairspring with the right. Look at the decoration of the balance bridge here!
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Glashütte PanoMaticLunar 18k red gold version, galvanized black dial with appliques
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Novelties in the Pavonina collection
Ladies first, so I should have started with these beauties. The Pavonina collection has been a fantastic design in Glashütte’s world of shapes. The stylish figure of the case as well as the diverse and elegant dials impressed us last year too. The company has added 7 new versions this year; most of them are new colour and material combinations (new bi-colour models were also introduced). The geometry of the inner insert of the dial was also altered – it used to follow the dainty cushion shape of the case, now it is circular. The timepiece has a very handy characteristic for ladies: the band is interchangeable. From this year on, you have a greater selection of colours on this front too.
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Glashütte Pavonina 18k Red Gold, with white mother-of-pearl guilloche dial and diamonds
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Photo credits: Glashütte Original, Loupiosity.com.
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