By Meor Amri Meor Ayob
I got to know about the Nomos Glashütte brand back in 2010. I happened to see an article about the creation of NOMOS Schweiz AG and the opening of its retail store in Zurich’s Niederdorf District. Since then I have been following the brand closely.
In was not a surprised to see the direction of the latest offerings by Nomos Glashütte. Since the company’s creation back in January 1990, it has a singular purpose of proving to the world that an enterprise located in a small town of Glashütte, situated halfway between Dresden and the Czech border can challenge famous brands on a global stage. Nomos Glashütte has without doubt proven their capabilities and they have done it with a very simple formula which other new watch brands seems to have missed. I’ll come back to this later.
The Nomos Glashütte Lambda and Nomos Glashütte Lux which was launched in October 2013 represent a ‘coming of age’ which is seldom seen in any watch brand. The simultaneous release of two models made out of precious metals coupled with the introduction of two new in-house movements is unprecedented for a small brand. This show the level of confidence Nomos Glashütte has on its competency.
The Lambda model is round, whereas the Lux has a classic Tonneau shape. The light-colored dials under the curved sapphire crystals are refined and understated, a reflection of the Bauhaus design philosophy.
Below is the Lambda in white gold and rose gold.
The Lambda is 42 mm wide and 8.9 mm thick. The choice of a small font sized for the numbers, indexes and letterings as well as the needle thin hands on the dial exudes an impression of a large watch. The galvanized, white silver-plated dial plus the rhodium-plated hands are excellent choices to create the simple yet sophisticated haute couture look.
The huge power reserve indicator is a thing of beauty. On first impression, one would easily mistake it for another complication instead of a power reserve indicator. I personally love power reserve indicators. For Nomos Glashütte to choose this instead of a date window makes me a life time fan of this brand!
Lux Weissgold
Lux Weissgold Hell
Meanwhile, the Nomos Glashütte Lux is available in two 18k white gold versions – the Lux Weissgold with a light blue and white dial, and the Lux Weissgold Hell with white dial. The tonneau-style case measures 40.5 x 36 mm. Similar to the Lambda, it’s a thin watch with a thickness of just 8.95 mm. Once again, minimalists design with no other complications apart from the second-hand sub-dial. If you think the dial is exquisite, wait until you see the movement itself!
| DUW 1001
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| DUW 2002
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Both models are powered by two new in-house movements, the DUW 1001 for the Lambda and the DUW 2002 for the Lux.
The DUW 1001 with manual winding and power reserve indicator uses 29 jewels and operating at 21, 600 vph. With twin mainspring barrels, the watch is rated for 84 hours continuous. With its swan neck fine adjustment mechanism as well as the adjustment made equivalent to chronometer standards, this Lambda is a very accurate timepiece.
Similarly, the DUW 2002 is in the same way designed except that it uses only 23 jewels.
The beauty of the case back for both models is very apparent. Whereas the dial is minimalist, the display case back shows the intricacies and the design capabilities of the people that make up Nomos Glashütte.
This brings me back to the recipe or formula that made them reach the height of horology prowess in such a short time span – focus on a simple concept of Bauhaus. A lot of brands operate and design their timepieces based on style-of-the-moment. Unfortunately, this does not reflect a brand intrinsic DNA. This disconnect does not allow growth of fans. Nomos Glashütte does not face this problem because fans like them because of their concept and not style.
The beauty of the Lambda and Lux are its simplicity and not its complication. Personally, I like both and I want both!
Meor Amri Meor Ayob – Contributing Writer
Meor Amri is a passionate watch collector from Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. Having bitten by the horology bug in 2010, he has written extensively about the watch scene and has assembled a large collection of watches (excessively!!) on his own free time.
His blogs on the same subject are: Watch Collection Hobby & My Horological Photos
