It was a combination of this meticulous approach and a light-hearted remark that spurred his team into action and led to the creation of the first wristwatch with a 31-day power reserve when it was introduced in 2007—the Lange 31. “I [set up] a once- a-week breakfast meeting [with the Lange team]—it was a meeting without an agenda. For Germans, this is a very strange thing. They would think: why do I have a meeting, what’s the agenda, what do you expect? But for me it was an hour of getting to know each other.”

In one such meeting, there was a watch magazine in the room which the team were leafing through, and chatting about power reserves; one brand had 14 days, another had eight days and so on. De Haas, knowing technical people’s tendency to focus on feasibility, still decided to make a joking suggestion: “I said, ‘If we have to be king, we have to [have a power reserve that lasts] for a month.’” While the team may have initially reacted by explaining the challenges, De Haas pushed them past citing reasons why it couldn’t be done. “Technical guys are sometimes very good at explaining why something doesn’t work. That’s, of course, the part I don’t want to hear. ‘It’s never been done’—that’s a very bad excuse. Let’s try.” The lighthearted remark in a casual weekly meeting spurred them into action to take on the challenge of creating the unprecedented 31-day power reserve.

Don’t miss: Evelyne Genta on Gérald Genta’s lasting legacy in watchmaking

Three weeks later, the team sent him the prototype of the Lange 31, which met his brief thanks to a constant force escapement mechanism. This involves putting the two main springs—two tightly wound coils that store all the energy needed to keep the watch ticking—in a barrel. These springs want to unwind and release their energy, but the constant force escapement cleverly controls how much energy they release and when. The watch’s “engine” gets a consistent amount of power all the time, no matter whether the main springs are fully wound or almost unwound. This consistency equates to exceptionally accurate timekeeping. “The solution to make the Lange 31 work, out of that [the technicians found] a solution for Zeitwerk to work, and for Terraluna, and for Richard Lange Jumping Seconds to work,” says De Haas.

Product development is one aspect of watchmaking that De Haas has built upon. Another big challenge was navigating the expectations of owners Richemont in his early days at Lange, but he managed to effectively communicate his long-term vision. He said, “There were people [from Richemont] who had difficulty understanding [why product development was taking so much time], because I was building up a department and there were hardly any novelties coming out—which is logical, because we worked for five years on the Zeitwerk.” With the backing of Richemont’s chairman Johann Rupert, De Haas managed to calm their nerves, “and then the fruits came”. Investing those first five years in setting processes and product development built a strong foundation. “[Now] we have 10 movement designers, we have 10 prototypists. We’re not going to go any bigger. But we have a lot of movements at the moment. We work at 15 movements at a time in development,” he said. “I may be the face of A Lange & Söhne, but the ideas don’t come from me—they come from us.”

De Haas was in Hong Kong to launch the Zeitwerk Minute Repeater in Honeygold. The novelty was met with collective awe when the team at A Lange & Söhne finally saw the finished product that they had worked on. “I remember when we saw our first product, I was like: wow! Sometimes, you see a watch and say OK, this is good; but [with this one] the whole team was like: wow!” De Haas says, beaming with pride.

With limited numbers produced each year by A Lange & Söhne, there’s always huge demand. Naturally, we had to ask De Haas about allocation, and get a better idea of how collectors can get their hands on these rare releases. He explains he is content to leave such decisions in the capable hands of the sales department, and describes their meticulous selection process. “The sales [department] has a keen system. [Customer allocation is] not something that the boutiques will be deciding; it’s the sales director who’s deciding that; it’s a team of six eyes who decides which [people] get [which] number.” This system, he says, was designed to ensure that each of the brand’s creations is distributed fairly among its eager clientele. “I’m happy that I’m not involved,” he concludes, with a chuckle.

NOW READ

Meet Rebecca Struthers, the first master watchmaker in the UK to earn a PhD in horology

John Mayer co-designed this new Audemars Piguet Royal Oak

The Omega Speedmaster Daniel Craig teased in New York is now available for public sale