The Bite Magazine - Autumn/Winter 2024 - Issue 36

bitewatches Jada Brookes is mesmerised by the diverse, colourful Tangente collection celebrating 175 years of Glashütte watchmaking. Tangente Colour T wo months after the Berlin Wall came down, Roland Schwertner established the German watchmaking company Nomos Glashütte in Jan- uary 1990, specialising in artisan manual-wind- ing automatic mechanical watches. Thanks to his family ties in the Ore Mountains, the founder became familiar with precision watchmaking and blended the revered tra- ditions of Glashütte watchmaking with modern minimal- ist design. This town had been manufacturing watch parts and timepieces since 1845. The brand’s initial collection featured the Orion, Lud- wig, Tetra, and Tangente watches designed by Susanne Günther, which became synonymous with Bauhaus-in- spired design and timeless elegance. A classic since 1992, the revered Tangente timepiece has won several awards. In 2014, Schwertner introduced the innovative swing system, an in-house escapement that freed him from the constraints of the Swiss watch industry and allowed him greater design freedom. Tangente is perhaps Nomos Glashütte most famous mod- el, embodying the brand’s minimalist ethos. The Bauhaus movement philosophy emphasised function over form, clean lines, and removing unnecessary ornamentation, making the watches strikingly simple yet elegant. With its thin bezel, angular lugs, and uncluttered dial, the Tan- gente feels modern yet timeless. It eschews superfluous elements like sub-dials or date windows and delivers the time most clearly and legibly possible. The timepiece’s dial is characterised by its san-serif typog- raphy, often in subtle blue or grey. Its signature thin, stick- like hands contribute to the watch’s clean, minimal look. The case is made from stainless steel, with some available in gold for those seeking a more luxurious variant. The scratch-resistant domed sapphire crystal enhances the watch’s readability. The caseback can be solid or transpar- ent, with many opting for the sapphire to showcase the beautifully finished in-house movements. Since 2005, Nomos Glashütte has been using in-house calibres in its Tangente watches, such as the Alpha, DUW 3001, and DUW 6101, renowned for their thinness and reliability. The watch designs have evolved over the years, with the DUW 3001 movement powering the Tangente Neomatik in 2015. This watch offered the convenience of an automatic watch while maintaining its slim profile. It featured subtle changes to the dial design, such as colour highlighting certain elements like the second hand or numerals.