A. Lange & Söhne has a trick it pulls at Watches & Wonders every year. One watch to dominate the press releases and Instagram stories, one watch to quietly become the piece collectors actually wear. In 2024 it was the Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon “Lumen” in Honeygold. Last year, the Minute Repeater Perpetual. For 2026, the Saxon manufacture went all-in on calendars, pairing a 685-part luminous tourbillon perpetual calendar with a 36mm annual calendar that has no business being this thin.
Two new calibres. Two very different propositions. Neither one is filler.
The Lange 1 Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar “Lumen” is the seventh entry in the Lumen family, and the first time Lange has married its two signature grand complications to that tinted sapphire dial concept. The whole Lumen idea started because Anthony de Haas, Lange’s Director of Product Development, couldn’t read his platinum Zeitwerk in the dark.
The obvious solution was luminescent material on the jumping numeral discs, but the frequent switching left almost no time for conventional charging. So Lange developed a tinted, semi-transparent sapphire dial that blocks most visible light while letting ultraviolet light pass through to charge the discs beneath. That patented system debuted on the Zeitwerk “Luminous” in 2010 and has appeared on six references since.
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This is the most complex application yet.
In daylight, the semi-transparent crystal turns the watch into a mechanical aquarium. You can see everything: the perlage on the plates, the straight-grained levers, the toothed wheels, the chamfered edges. It’s watchmaking as spectacle, and Lange’s finishing standards mean it actually rewards the attention.
In the dark, the Lumen treatment kicks in. UV light passes through the tinted sapphire and charges luminescent material applied to the outsize date numerals, the moonphase display, the leap year indicator, the hour and minute hands, and the retrograde weekday hand. The whole perpetual calendar becomes readable in low light, which, for a complication that packs this much information onto a single dial, is a genuine functional upgrade rather than a party trick.
The moonphase is new, too. Lange has layered a day/night indicator underneath it, with the sky around the moon studded with luminescent stars. It’s the kind of detail that only reveals itself when the lights go down.
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685 Parts In A Brand New Calibre
The movement is the Calibre L225.1, and it’s a complete departure from the L082.1 that has powered the Lange 1 Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar since 2012. Where the old calibre ran on roughly 500 components with 62 jewels, the L225.1 packs 685 components and 74 jewels, including a diamond endstone set in a screwed gold chaton. That last detail is a direct callback to Lange’s historical 1A-quality pocket watches.
Energy comes from a white gold rotor with a platinum centrifugal mass, good for a 50-hour power reserve. The one-minute tourbillon runs at 21,600 vph with Lange’s in-house balance spring, and the patented stop-seconds mechanism halts the balance inside the rotating cage when the crown is pulled. It’s a feature Lange first patented in 2008, and it means you can set this watch to the second, which remains uncommon for tourbillons.
The perpetual calendar switches instantaneously across all displays. Assuming the watch runs continuously, no correction is needed until 1 March 2100. The moonphase cycle will run true for 122.6 years.
The case is 950 platinum, 41.9mm across and 13mm thick, on a black alligator strap with a deployant quick-lock platinum buckle. Limited to 50 numbered pieces. Price on request, which at this level means if you have to ask, etc.
Specifications
| Case | 41.9mm x 13mm, 950 platinum |
| Dial | Tinted semi-transparent sapphire with luminescent displays |
| Movement | Calibre L225.1, automatic |
| Power Reserve | 50 hours |
| Frequency | 21,600 vph |
| Components | 685, including 74 jewels |
| Functions | Hours, minutes, subsidiary seconds, tourbillon with stop-seconds, perpetual calendar, moonphase with day/night indicator, outsize date, retrograde day, month, leap year |
| Strap | Black alligator, platinum deployant buckle |
| Reference | 720.035FE |
| Availability | Limited edition of 50 |
| Price | Upon request |
The 36mm Annual Calendar That Makes Everyone Else Look Oversized
The Saxonia Annual Calendar is the quiet play. And honestly, this might be the one that matters more.
At 36mm across and 9.8mm thick, Lange has fitted a full annual calendar with outsize date, moonphase, day and month subdials into proportions you’d normally associate with a simple three-hander. For context, Lange’s previous Saxonia Annual Calendar was 38.5mm. The 1815 Annual Calendar sits at 38mm. Both felt refined. This one goes further.
Two versions: white gold with an argenté dial and pink gold with a grey dial, both crafted from 925 silver with a finely grained matte finish. The dial layout is pure Lange. Month subdial at 3 o’clock, day of the week at 9, running seconds with moonphase at 6, and the signature outsize date window at 12. Everything is legible. Nothing feels cramped.
The new Calibre L207.1 is what makes the dimensions possible. It measures 30.4mm wide and just 5.7mm thick, which is remarkably compact for a self-winding annual calendar.
Power reserve has jumped to 60 hours (up from 46 hours in the predecessor’s L085.1), and winding is handled by a unidirectional rotor with a platinum centrifugal mass. The finishing is everything you’d expect: Cotes de Geneve on the bridges, bevelled edges, clean internal corners, and a fully hand-engraved balance cock.
One trade-off worth noting: the new movement drops the Zero-Reset feature from the previous calibre, which would snap the seconds hand back to zero when pulling the crown to set the time. It’s a small loss, but for Lange purists who valued that functional detail, it’s there.
A single pusher at 10 o’clock advances all calendar indications simultaneously, with individual hidden correctors for date, day, month, and moonphase. As an annual calendar, it only requires manual correction once a year at the end of February.
Both models come on hand-stitched reddish-brown alligator straps with case-matching gold prong buckles. No quick-release spring bars. Lange picked these straps for a reason, and they’d prefer you didn’t swap them.
Priced at approximately EUR 65,000 (approx $100,000 AUD)
Specifications
| Case | 36mm x 9.8mm, 750 white gold or 750 pink gold |
| Dial | Argenté (white gold) / Grey (pink gold), 925 silver |
| Movement | Calibre L207.1, automatic |
| Power Reserve | 60 hours |
| Frequency | 21,600 vph |
| Components | 491, including 56 jewels |
| Functions | Hours, minutes, seconds, annual calendar, outsize date, day, month, moonphase |
| Strap | Hand-stitched alligator, gold prong buckle |
| References | 331.026 E (white gold), 331.033 E (pink gold) |
| Price | Approximately EUR 65,000 |
DMARGE’s Two Seconds
Lange’s 2026 play is a textbook example of a brand that knows exactly what it’s doing.
The Lumen is the one everyone will talk about, and rightfully so. Combining both grand complications with the Lumen concept for the first time, inside a completely new 685-part calibre, limited to 50 pieces in platinum. It’s a statement piece, and Lange makes those better than almost anyone.
But the Saxonia Annual Calendar is the release that deserves more attention than it will probably get.
A 36mm annual calendar with those proportions, that finishing, and a 60-hour power reserve at EUR 65,000 puts it directly in the path of the Patek Philippe 5396 and the Vacheron Constantin Traditionnelle Complete Calendar. Lange’s version is smaller, thinner, and, depending on your tastes, more refined than both.
