Emirates Man

Spend five minutes in any watch forum, or in the comments beneath a new Longines release, and you’ll notice something interesting. Whether it’s the Spirit Zulu Time, the Legend Diver, the Conquest or the recently redesigned HydroConquest, the reaction has been remarkably consistent – Longines is on a roll. It is an unusual consensus in an industry that thrives on disagreement. Collectors can spend hours debating the benefits of one calibre versus another, finishing, dimensions, and whether a watch is worth what its maker is asking for. Yet Longines seems to have found a rare sweet spot. Over the past few years, release after release has been met with a notable level of enthusiasm.

The company occupies an unusual position in Swiss watchmaking. Its timepieces are historically significant enough for experienced collectors, beautifully considered enough for aesthetes and accessible enough to become someone’s first serious mechanical watch rather than a distant aspiration. I confess. I have a particular affection for Longines, so perhaps I am predisposed to notice its recent winning streak. When I began working in the luxury business many years ago, the brand from Saint-Imier was my introduction to mechanical watchmaking, long before I understood the subtleties of escapements, finishing or chronometry. Saint-Imier was, in a sense, my university of horological excellence. Each visit to the Manufacture taught me something, although it is only with hindsight that I have begun to appreciate what those visits were really telling me about the brand. At the heart of this venerable institution, beyond the pristine workshops, bathed in natural light from windows overlooking the Bernese Jura valley, sits one of the most remarkable archives in the history of Swiss watchmaking.

Visitors enter it through a wood-panelled room with shelves that are lined with burgundy-bound ledgers, recording generation after generation of Longines production. The records stretch back to 1867 (the year that all their operations were brought under one roof in this very spot, known as Les Longines (‘long meadows’). The ledgers contain meticulous records of serial numbers and details allowing the manufacture to trace the history of individual watches.

At first glance, it presents as simply an impressive piece of corporate history but I think its significance is rather more interesting. For a brand that has been producing watches for almost two centuries, there is so much heritage to dip into that this abundance of inspiration can sometimes run the risk of becoming daunting.

In the 2000s and early 2010s, Longines’ catalogue grew increasingly broad, with collections and references sometimes overlapping and the sheer volume making it harder to see what the brand stood for. Today, there is a much clearer design language and a noticeably more disciplined product strategy. Longines seems to have become much more selective about what it puts its name to. Its archive is central to that. The records and the immense depth of accompanying material remain an active resource for the watches Longines makes today, in more ways than one.

The expected outcome is that rather than producing generic vintage-inspired watches, the brand is able to frequently return to specific historical references, preserving proportions, typography, hands and dial layouts with remarkable fidelity. Authenticity, in other words, becomes a design process rather than a marketing exercise.

Yet perhaps the even more remarkable thing about Longines’ archival culture is that it isn’t reserved for the brand itself. The same records that inform today’s watches also remain available to collectors. A vintage Longines can be sent back to Saint-Imier for examination, with the manufacture able to trace its production history and, following examination by its watchmakers, issue a Certificate of Authenticity. There is something so wonderful about that continuity; the fact that a timepiece could have left Saint-Imier more than a century ago and still have a relationship with the place that made it. Indeed, I came across a number of such interactions between the brand and its collectors. That relationship also extends to restoration. Longines maintains dedicated capabilities for historical watches, including the restoration of vintage pieces and the servicing of historical calibres. Where original components are no longer readily available, the manufacture can draw on its archive and accumulated expertise to help keep these watches alive.

The point I’m trying to make is that collectors notice these things. Most importantly, they’ve clocked that this channel of communication runs both ways; that Longines seems willing to listen.

The Spirit Zulu Time is a great example of this fact. When the original 42mm model appeared, enthusiasts quickly began asking for a smaller version. A 39mm model followed the next year, with Hodinkee noting at the time that the original had been an “immediate hit” and that the smaller size was already being requested by enthusiasts. It sounds like a small thing, but for someone who spends hours thinking about how a watch wears on the wrist, a few millimetres can be the difference between admiring a watch and wanting to own it. Go down the rabbit-hole of Reddit watch discussions or comments on social media and you’ll see versions of this played out in ways that seem genuinely rare in the luxury industry today.

There are other examples of this in the catalogue too. Over the past few years, enthusiasts have repeatedly praised the brand for refining successive releases in response to genuine feedback. Case sizes have become more wearable. Date windows have been removed where they seemed to disrupt symmetry or alter original aesthetics. Proportions have become cleaner. Details like these seem to matter to seasoned collectors. This dialogue between the brand and its clients has become one of its greatest strengths. Longines actually feels attentive. That may be the real secret behind Longines’ recent run.

These decisions suggest something important about the relationship between Longines and its enthusiasts. Perhaps that is what collectors really mean when they say Longines is on a roll. Perhaps, after a period of trying to speak to everyone, Longines seems to have found its authentic voice again and, judging by the response, collectors are once again enjoying what it has to say.

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