Watches from Chronoswiss

  Chronoswiss is a German watch manufacturer based in Munich-Karlsfeld. The company was founded by Gerd R. Lang in 1983 with the mission to make the most extraordinary mechanical timepieces.
Chronoswiss tries to stay exclusive by only producing about 7,000 watches per year. Though a German company, every component is produced in Switzerland and then the watches are hand-finished.
 
Everyone has their favourites, and Chronoswiss are one of our own favourite watchmakers.
Unlike many of the ‘Old Masters’ which rightly constitute the majority of today’s most illustrious watchmakers and manufactures, the Chronoswiss history does not go back a hundred years or more. In fact, Chronoswiss are only this year, 2009, celebrating the occasion of their first quarter-century of producing their distinctive timepieces.
The company’s beginnings actually go back a little further to 1981, when its’ charismatic founder Gerd-Rüdiger Lang, having been immersed in the watch industry in many guises since the early 1960s, established his own workshop in Munich where he principally concentrated on various concepts based around the chronograph movement.
 
 
The Chronoswiss Régulateur
World’s firsts were to become something of a trademark which would be associated with Gerd R Lang’s brand, as many of the models which would come to make up the Chronoswiss portfolio were inventive interpretations of the wristwatch which pushed the boundaries of design, layout and functionality.
The distinctive design and function of Chronoswiss watches as well as Lang’s philosophical approach to showcasing and marketing his passion served to catapult the new watch brand into a respect among watch enthusiasts reserved normally for much older and illustrious manufactures.
A succession of new models would follow, each one in its’ own way a breakaway from the traditional, while at the same time still honouring the skills of the early master watchmakers in their functionality and complication.
 
The Chronoswiss Chronoscope
A browse across the Chronoswiss collection reveals a distinctive and comprehensive interpretation of complications, encompassing virtually all of the recognised watchmaking ‘masterpieces’.
As Chronoswiss matured, its’ following grew beyond the small number of enthusiasts who were interested in a quirky and headstrong German watchmaker.
 
The Chronoswiss Digiteur
The Chronoswiss portfolio accommodates a broad selection of styles and functions ranging from Chronographs and Rattrapante, the Chronoscope, the Delphis (featuring retrograde minutes and digital hour display), through remarkable pieces like the Digiteur (above), which combines the analogue movement with a non-analogue display, its’ complete and perpetual calendars and moonphase watches on to the stunning Régulateur Tourbillon and Répétition á quarts timepieces.
In recent times, an important new addition to the portfolio has arrived and this piece, the fabulous Chronoswiss Sauterelle (Grasshopper!) models, complete with that famous quartz movement signature – jumping seconds – even though the movement is wholly mechanical!
 
The Chronoswiss Sauterelle 71
The new Sauterelle is noteworthy in that for the very first time, Chronoswiss have created this ground-breaking mechanical movement, from scratch, in-house, thereby becoming Chronoswiss’ first creation as a ‘manufacture’.
As well as paying tribute to the technical genius of his predecessors, G-R Langs’ Chronoswiss also worked with materials such as enamel – as seen on the beautiful Orea Handaufzug (or manual-wound) watch.
Ensuring continuity in the same mould as himself, Gerd-Rüdiger Lang proudly announced in 2003 the appointment as Junior President in the person of Natalie Lang, his own daughter, also a time-served and qualified watchmaker with business management skills.
Chronoswiss saw out 2006 with a December move into its’ brand new purpose-built manufacturing facility in Karlsfeld, a town in the suburbs of the Bavarian capitol, Munich.
 
A comparative newcomer then by industry standards, but a watchmaker whose naked passion for his craft, with a fine eye for distinctive design and layout combined with the essence of tradition has nonetheless elevated the Chronoswiss name to a level of respect across the industry and with aficionados enjoyed only by the highest echelons of the watchmaking world.
Gerd-Rüdiger Langs’ history may not reach back a hundred years or more, but those whose works so influenced him most certainly do!