Nomos Tangente 33 Ladies’ Watch, Steel Back

It’s part of the Nomos philosophy to avoid extremes, so their watches are never very big, or very small. They noticed however that the cases were often rather generously constructed in relation to the inside mechanism, which in turn led to the idea that a market gap might be filled by designing an optically slightly smaller model for ladies. It has a galvanized white silver-plated face and tempered-blue hands, and comes with a water-resistant suede calfskin leather strap.

Nomos clocks and watches recommenced manufacture in Glashütte, East Germany, soon after the political ‘turn’ and quickly made a name for themselves – with designs drawing inspiration both from the ideas of the German Work Federation (the combination of up-to-date production techniques, affordability and durability together with modern taste) and from the Bauhaus School (“form follows function”). In the early days the Nomos people added Swiss standards (which they refined at home for their own purpose) to these principles: the net result, to say the least, is a decent watch.
A final note: Nomos have for some years now been making their watches with a hand-winding mechanism exclusively designed and manufactured themselves in-house.

The watchmaking brand Nomos Glashütte was established in 1991 in Glashütte, a town in the easternmost part of the Ore Mountains in the Free State of Saxony: the birthplace of the German watchmaking industry. Nomos Glashütte quickly made a name for itself with designs inspired by the ideas of the Deutscher Werkbund, a still existing German association of artists, architects and designers established in 1907 and the Bauhaus school. The Dessau maxim “form follows function” is an approach that Nomos Glashütte has emulated in an exemplary manner to this very day, using good design to make timeless products that are unaffected by ever-changing fashions and tastes. Nomos Glashütte stands out among watchmakers not just for aesthetic but also for technical reasons. Rather than depending on tried and tested Swiss calibres and adding refinements to them, as was done in earlier years, Nomos Glashütte can now rightfully claim the title of manufacture: for years now, Nomos Glashütte has relied exclusively on manual movements developed in-house and made almost entirely of individual components manufactured in Glashütte. Working in cooperation with the Technische Universität Dresden and the Fraunhofer Institute, Nomos Glashütte made a quantum leap toward complete independence when seven years of in-house development culminated in the completion and subsequent series production of its very own swing system, which is responsible for driving the watch movement and keeping it accurate. The Nomos Glashütte swing system replaced the escapement assembly composed of the balance, balance spring, escape wheel and pallet fork that until then had been made only by the Swatch subsidiary Nivarox. Nomos Glashütte is one of only a few companies that have the technical capabilities needed to carry out such manufacturing and calibration tasks, on the scale of thousandths of a gramme, within their own facilities. Even the particularly difficult task of putting together the entire escapement assembly is done in-house by Nomos Glashütte.