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| Longines Watches |
Longines is one of the few brands that in recent years has truly understood how to retain traditional values and classic watch design in its product palette while balancing them with a model policy dominated by the newest in watch technology and contemporary shapes.
It was two years ago that Longines celebrated the manufacture of a total of 30 million watches since its founding in 1832. A company history that can be proud of a lot more than just high production numbers hides behind this gigantic number of timepieces. Above all, it comes to light that this old brand could occupy a much more prominent place within the brand hierarchy of the Swatch Group due to its immense history. Longines has outfitted polar researchers such as Amundsen and pioneers in aviation such as Lindbergh and von Weems with its products, later reaping an excellent reputation for board watches for airplanes. Longines has understood very well how to fulfill its position within the group at the upper end of the middle segment without compulsively
feeling the need to cling to its tradition with nostalgic flashbacks. Seeing how modern, youthful, and full of elan the traditional brand's models such as DolceVita, Conquest, oposition, and Evidenza are today, it is certainly hard to believe that this is a company with a more than 170-year history.
A visit to the company's own museum, however, quickly makes clear what a grand history this brand has enjoyed and with how much imagination and spirit of invention the company's employees work in the immense production building located on the outskirts of the small Jura town St. Imier. Here, in the museum located on the uppermost floor of the old factory building, it becomes apparent that Longines has been involved in just about every area of watch technology, often playing the role of pioneer in the industry and setting trends. This is also the case with the original Evidenza model family, just released and styled after a Longines watch from the year 1925, bullseyeing consumers' taste during a time that was dominated by social upheaval and multilayered reorientation. Capturing such currents and turning them into product ideas is one of the most elementary demands on a designer, and Longines's designers have always mastered this perfectly. The Evidenza of our time shows that it is not always necessary to invent perfectly new things, but that sometimes it is good to also reinterpret trustworthy models at the right time. For in the 1920s the line that has become the company's message, "elegance is an attitude," was just as valid as it is today. Just as in the 1950s when Humphrey Bogart, wearing a melancholy expression and a yellow-gold, tonneau-shaped Longines, posed for the camera.
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Longines
The Swatch Group (U.S.), Inc.
1200 Harbor Boulevard
Weehawken, NJ 07087
Tel.: 201-271-1400
Fax: 201-271-4633
www.longines.com
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