The A. Lange & Söhne Cabaret Tourbillon Returns in Honeygold®

Markedly different from A. Lange & Söhne’s predominantly round timepieces, the Cabaret was first introduced in 1997, only a few years after the revival of the brand in 1994 by Walter Lange and Günter Blümlein.

Named “Cabaret” in reference to its Art Deco-inspired geometry, the rectangular timepiece pairs architectural symmetry with the manufacture’s signature outsize date display. Over the years, the model line has also seen tourbillon and moonphase interpretations.

Now, for the first time since the exquisite Cabaret Tourbillon Handwerkskunst of 2021, A. Lange & Söhne has unveiled a new Cabaret Tourbillon at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este on the shores of Lake Como.

The new Cabaret Tourbillon Honeygold® marks the 18^th A. Lange & Söhne watch to be rendered in the manufacture’s proprietary Honeygold® alloy. More importantly, however, it carries the brand’s signature stop-seconds mechanism for the tourbillon—a proprietary innovation first introduced in the Cabaret Tourbillon of 2008. Since then, the mechanism has gradually become a defining hallmark of Lange’s tourbillon watches, raising the bar for precision in haute horlogerie.

Limited to just 50 examples, the Cabaret Tourbillon Honeygold® features a dial whose individual sections have been painstakingly treated with black rhodium, creating a striking contrast against the warm glow of the proprietary 750 Honeygold® case. Measuring 29.5mm by 39.2mm with a thickness of 10.3mm, the watch retains the poised proportions that distinguished the original Cabaret.

While the window at 12 o’clock displays Lange’s signature outsize date, the opening at 6 o’clock draws the eye toward the stop-seconds tourbillon.

Conventional tourbillon watches cannot be set with absolute precision because the rotating cage and balance assembly cannot be halted. By engineering a braking spring for the balance wheel, A. Lange & Söhne overcame this limitation, allowing the tourbillon to be stopped regardless of the cage’s orientation or the position of the balance wheel. Remarkably, this innovation introduces no risk of damage to the delicate mechanism while preserving the balance wheel’s stored energy, enabling the tourbillon to restart instantly once the crown is pushed back in.

A subsidiary seconds display sits at 8 o’clock, while the subdial at 4 o’clock houses the manufacture’s patented Ab/Auf power reserve indicator.

In true Lange fashion, both the tourbillon bridge and the upper section of the tourbillon cage have been rendered in black polish. Achieved by buffing the steel component against a tin plate with painstakingly controlled pressure and consistency, black polishing creates a finish that appears pitch-dark from certain angles before erupting into a mirror-like gleam under changing light.

From the finely engraved logo to the hand-polished numerals and lozenge-shaped markers, the dial alone demands weeks of painstaking labor.

The manually wound caliber L042.1 receives the full, uncompromising Lange treatment as well, featuring details such as an engraved tourbillon cock, engraved intermediate-wheel cock, heat-blued screws, and a solarized ratchet wheel. Its filigreed tourbillon cage weighs just a quarter of a gram, while the twin barrels provide an impressive 120-hour power reserve.

The Cabaret Tourbillon Honeygold® is paired with a dark brown alligator leather strap secured by a Honeygold® prong buckle.