Spotlight: Lang & Heyne

Over the past few years, social media has become an increasingly prominent, and important, vehicle in engaging with the watch world. With this, there have been some positive turns, and of course some negative, however I like to keep things positive. One of the best things about it in my opinion is a greater exposure to more smaller brands and independent watchmakers; the types who quietly go about their work without the extensive marketing budgets that larger outfits enjoy.

There have been many watchmakers and small independent brands that I have stumbled across via Instagram. However, given the vast majority of these produce watches in such small quantities, it is quite challenging to then ever encounter the watches to be able to handle and enjoy them in person, unless you’re able to meet with them or their representatives.

Lang & Heyne falls into this group for me as a small German independent brand based in Dresden that I discovered via Instagram – I was instantly taken by the incredible finishing applied to their movements. After having followed them for a couple of years, I was recently able to meet with a brand rep in London to learn more about the brand and, finally, gets hands on with some Lang & Heyne watches.

I was so impressed with both what I saw and what I learned that I wanted to put this article together to shine the Watch Affinity Spotlight on the brand as a whole… I hope you enjoy learning about them as much as I did!

The Lang & Heyne Story

If you had to pick one word to sum up the underlying philosophy of the brand, it would be craftsmanship. Indeed, in the brand’s catalogue, CEO Alexander Gutierrez Diaz refers to a quote by writer and painter Wilhelm von Kügelgen to illustrate this, which I tend to agree with him makes the point both eloquently and succinctly:

“Without craftsmanship and handwork, a beautiful work of fine art will never emerge and, as such, a perfectly crafted item will never lack beauty.”

The watches of Lang & Heyne certainly encapsulate this, right down to the tiniest detail.

So where did their story begin? It might perhaps be a little surprising to learn that, despite embodying the traditional horological heritage of its Dresden base, Lang & Heyne itself is a relatively young brand, having only been founded by Marco Lang and Mirko Heyne in 2001.

Today, both Lang and Heyne are no longer with the brand. Mirko Heyne moved on just one year after its founding to join Nomos Glashütte, where he went on to become head of research and development.

Marco Lang remained at the helm of Lang & Heyne for many years as a creative and technical tour de force, creating no less than nine different calibres and eight watch families during his tenure. He was inducted as a member of Svend Andersen and Vincent Calabrese’s group of independent watchmakers, the AHCI (Académie Horlogère des Créateurs Indépendants) in 2005 and remains a member of the association to this day.

Lang remained at Lang & Heyne until 2019, when he decided to return to the workbench and spend his time creating watches as an independent watchmaker once more, under the banner of Marco Lang watches.

The baton held by Marco Lang for 18 years has passed to Jens Schneider, who joined Lang & Heyne in 2019. Formerly of A. Lange & Söhne, Schneider was a notable contributor to the iconic Zeitwerk, as well as other movement developments, and more recently he worked at Moritz Grossmann where he was head of the construction department. Suffice it to say, it will be an exciting new era for Lang & Heyne under Schneider’s technical stewardship, and I am looking forward to seeing this future unfold.

With a small team, and still based in the same Dresden atelier where the brand started, Lang & Heyne today continue to quietly go about their business of producing and hand finishing 97% of components in-house to create about 100 watches per year.

Lang & Heyne Watch Collections

There are currently nine collections in the Lang & Heyne catalogue. A further testament to the traditions of Dresden, each collection is named after a member of German nobility who features on a mural in Dresden called Fürstenzug, or The Procession of Princes, containing portraits of members of German nobility from between 1123 and 1904.

Eight of these collections are very much traditional in style, whilst the most recent ninth collection introduced in 2021, named Hektor, is the brand’s take on a contemporary stainless-steel sports watch with integrated bracelet.

The watches I was able to see came from the Friedrich III, Anton and Albert collections. They really did not disappoint, and it isn’t an overstatement to say they blew me away. The inherent quality of the watch is immediately apparent – it always sounds a strange thing to say, but I genuinely believe you can literally feel the quality of a high-end piece when it is in your hands.

One hallmark design feature common across the Lang & Heyne watches is the use of a third, central lug on the top and bottom of the case to connect the strap. I quite like the look of these, and whilst I’m not sure how much it adds beyond aesthetics, I’m sure it must help make the strap more secure, which is always welcome!

Friedrich III and Anton were both very elegant dress watches. The Friedrich III has a 39.2mm round case with three hands and a small-seconds sub-dial at 6 o’clock and elongated Roman numerals for the hour markers, whilst the Anton has a smaller, rectangular case measuring 32mm x 40mm with a beautiful white enamel dial, adorned with Arabic numerals from 12 until 4 and 8 until 12, owing to the flying tourbillon at 6 o’clock on show through an aperture in the dial.

Both of these collections are available in different options for material – Friedrich III in stainless-steel, rose gold or platinum, and the complicated Anton in gold or platinum only.

Where the Albert maintains the brand’s overarching elegance, with the same elongated Roman numerals and a running small-seconds, it does have a much larger round case at 44mm (available in gold or platinum). The heft from the platinum combined with the bigger size meant the watch certainly had some presence about it!

It is, however, bigger for a reason as the case houses the magnificent Calibre IV, a manual-wind monopusher chronograph movement. Dial-side, the chronograph seconds and minutes are subtly indicated by two hands affixed to the centre of the dial, avoiding the use of sub-dials and keeping the dial clean.

For me, the stars of the show – with each watch – was the exquisitely finished manual-wind movement, that was, to paraphrase the aforementioned writer and painter Wilhelm von Kügelgen, “a beautiful work of fine art”.

The plates are finished with a grain-like appearance, created by sandblasting and the application of a silver powder applied with a stiff bristle brush. Every edge is bevelled, chamfered, or polished, screws are thermally blued, and there are even aesthetically placed diamonds adorning the movement, showcasing an array of finishing techniques.

There is also immaculate hand engraving applied to the balance cock.

Admiring the movement under a loupe you’re likely to notice a new detail to admire and enjoy every time; my favourite detail to admire was the double-banded snailing finish applied to the barrels.

Each of the manual-wind calibres making up the Lang & Heyne catalogue are all different, ranging from three-hand movements to monopusher chronographs, calendars and moon-phases, tourbillons and even remontoires. The winding was incredibly smooth, too.

I think the brand have achieved something that is quite difficult with these movements as well, having nailed a consistent design language that I would argue, at least once you’re familiar with the brand, renders the watch immediately recognisable as a Lang & Heyne timepiece.

Of course, there are several other collections amongst the Lang & Heyne catalogue, however I think that the three I saw certainly gave a representative taster, spanning from a more simple three-hand piece, through to different case shapes and complications as well. If you want to explore the rest of the collections, the link is at the end of this article.

Customisation Options

With independent watchmakers and brands, it is common to be offered customisation options – Lang & Heyne is no different in this regard. Depending on the watch there are multiple options for customisation (depending on the watch collection) including the case material, dial colour, enamelwork, strap options as well as choice of pin-buckle or deployant clasp, even different options for engravings, and the design, style, material, and colour of the hands.

Specifically for the hand colour of steel hands (and even screws), there are various options available thanks to the thermal bluing process, depending on the temperature that the steel reaches: colours range from brown through to purple, before the ever-popular rich blue.

Of course, depending on the customisation options selected, the price of the watch will vary. However, the extensive customisation options available ensures that every client can have the exact, piece unique that they want.

In Summary

Regular readers will know that I enjoy dress watches, and independent watchmaking in general – so it stands to reason that I would be a fan of Lang & Heyne. Having admired them from afar for a long time, seeing them in person certainly did not disappoint.

Of the three collections I tried, I think the Friedrich III would be my pick – as much as I like rectangular watches, I tend not to like them so much on my own wrist for some reason, and the Albert was a little too large for me. That said, flipping the watches over to admire the movements, size is no longer a problem and the Albert’s Calibre IV monopusher chronograph is simply mind-blowing!

Lang & Heyne will continue to go about their business quietly, producing a relative handful of exceptional watches each year from their Dresden base. Of course, their watches come with rather substantial price tag depending on the piece but, having now been able to enjoy them close up, I would certainly advocate for any collector with the facility to do so to consider Lang & Heyne as a future addition to their collection.

Very, very impressive – a huge thank you to both Lang & Heyne and Watchfinder for the opportunity to enjoy these watches!

For more information, follow Lang & Heyne on Instagram or visit Lang-Und-Heyne.de. If you have any questions, please get in touch via our Contact page, or via our Instagram.

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