A. Lange & Söhne Reimagines the Cabaret Tourbillon in Honeygold

With the new Cabaret Tourbillon Honeygold, A. Lange & Söhne revisits one of its most technically significant rectangular watches. Premiered in 2008 as the world’s first tourbillon wristwatch equipped with a stop-seconds mechanism for the tourbillon, the 50-piece limited edition unveiled during this years edition of the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este at Lake Como combines both a case and dial crafted from its proprietary Honeygold gold alloy. The watch is housed in a 29.5mm by 39.2mm rectangular case and measures 10.3mm in height. Its vibrant warm tone contrasts beautifully with the black-rhodiumed dial surface, which sets the stage for some of the Glashütte-based manufactures specialities: an outsize date, a power-reserve indication called "Auf/AB" and – of course – the tourbillon. 

Produced entirely in-house, the black-rhodiumed dial stands out as a piece of miniature art. It is composed of three sections: the main part along with two subsidiary displays for the small seconds and the UP/DOWN power-reserve indicator. The frames, scales, and “A. LANGE & SÖHNE” signature are painstakingly worked directly from the Honeygold base, rising 0.15m above the surface in sharply defined relief. Achieving the exact geometry and crisp contours of every angle and edge requires an exceptional degree of precision and hand-finishing expertise. The three dial components are then black-rhodiumed before the raised elements are carefully hand-finished to reveal the warm sheen of the Honeygold once again against the darkened background. Finely polished Roman numerals at III, IX, and XII, six lozenge-shaped hour markers, and the frame for the outsize date are subsequently applied individually. In the final stage, the subsidiary dials are connected with the main dial from the back. From the first production step to the final assembly, the entire process takes several weeks.

Naturally, the star of the show is the one-minute tourbillon at 6 o'clock. Its upper bridge and the top section of the cage are both finished with the demanding technique of black polishing. Using fine abrasive pastes, the components are moved by hand across a tin plate with carefully controlled pressure until the surface reflects light like a mirror from one angle while appearing deep black from another. The sharply angled inner corners of the cage are polished by hand as well, a painstaking process that requires exceptional precision, patience, and experience.

At the heart of the watch is the manually wound caliber L042.1, a form movement developed specifically for the Cabaret case architecture. Measuring 22.3mm by 32.6mm, it consists of 370 components, including 84 parts dedicated to the tourbillon assembly alone. The L042.1 operates at a frequency of 21,600 vibrations per hour and delivers a power reserve of 120 hours via a twin-barrel design.

Visible through the sapphire case back is a finely composed landscape of traditional Lange finishing, including the three-quarter plate made of untreated German silver — an invention that dates back to the brand's founder Ferdinand Adolph Lange — along with hand-engraved tourbillon and intermediate-wheel cocks, screwed gold chatons, blued screws, and a solarized ratchet wheel. Like all Lange movements, the caliber is assembled twice to ensure the highest standards of precision and quality. The Cabaret Tourbillon Honeygold is complemented by a dark-brown alligator leather strap secured with a honeygold prong buckle. Pricing is available on request.

To learn more, visit A. Lange & Söhne, here.