A. Lange & Söhne CEO Wilhelm Schmid talks to WatchPro about the brand he has helmed since 2011, the changes he has seen in the industry and what he thinks the future holds for the Glashütte-based watch manufacture.
WATCHPRO: In 2023 A. Lange & Söhne launched one new timepiece at Watches and Wonders – the magnificent (and now waiting-list only) Odysseus Chronograph? This year we saw two launches. What was the inspiration behind them?
WILHELM SCHMID: This year is the 25th anniversary of the Datograph and I don’t think I need to explain to anyone how important this watch was for A. Lange & Söhne back in 1999. It started a level of our fine watchmaking that we’d not seen before and which is still ongoing.
We wanted to celebrate this quarter of a century in our typical way – we don’t do red carpets, we come with some great watches and the Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon Honeygold “Lumen” is just that.
It’s not just a watch with a very, very long name, but it’s probably the ultimate Datograph, because we threw in everything that collectors want from Lange and it will be very difficult to create a more complicated version.
But of course, it’s a high-ticket item. After all these years, the Datograph family has gained the hearts of a lot of collectors that don’t have hundreds of thousands to spend and, therefore, we wanted to bring another novelty in a colour combination we had never done before and with a higher production.
The Datograph Up/Down White Gold is still only made in 125 pieces and is still a very expensive watch, but it is definitely more accessible.
WATCHPRO: You produce fewer than 6,000 watches a year and Lange has become a waiting-list watch brand. Is that something that you were striving for, or is it something of a poisoned chalice?
WILHELM SCHMID: We all aim for that one point where demand and supply are in perfect balance. Maybe at one moment in time, that specific moment exists somewhere on the planet, but it is more likely an impossible task.
We have certainly gained a lot of momentum with people that love fine watchmaking, but we decided very early on not to change our way of designing, developing and producing watches. There’s a natural limit to the number of pieces that we are able to produce and it’s not determined by the marketing department, it’s actually defined by the number of skilled watchmakers we have.
We have grown our capacity because we have a school and every year we have new watchmakers and new finishers qualifying in slightly larger numbers than those that are retiring. We do not lose a lot of people so yes, our numbers are growing – we were around 460 people globally when I came here, now we are about 850.
But the growth is usually offset by the number of hours that we devote to the average watch. So, I can’t give any promise of increasing the numbers, and I hope customers understand that our waiting time is not because we don’t want their business, or because we want to be mean to people and make them wait, it is just a consequence of how we work, plus the high demand that we experience throughout the world.
WATCHPRO: How do you allocate the watches? If somebody wanted to buy a Datograph, for example, how would they get on to a waiting list to purchase one?
WILHELM SCHMID: It’s very easy, and very difficult. First, as I’ve said many times, it has to be a fair process and we have to monitor that process throughout the world. ‘Fair’ means there’s a rule, and that rule applies to everybody.
It’s a matter of trust and that has to be built over time. If you are serious about getting one of these watches that are either very limited, or where the waiting list is long, you have to create a relationship with somebody at a point of sale.
We don’t want to allocate watches to customers where the main purpose is to just sell the watch again, to make some money. That’s not in our interest. We try to please clients that love fine watchmaking and A. Lange & Söhne timepieces.
Unfortunately, there is no certificate that you can show to say, ‘look, I’m a serious collector’, so it’s based on trust, on relationships, on time spent with people. Everybody that builds that with us will have a fair chance of eventually getting what they want. Not all the time, of course, but everybody has a fair chance.
WATCHPRO: What is your personal advice on the best way to build up a relationship?
WILHELM SCHMID: If you walk into a boutique and say, ‘I want a steel Odysseus’, that’s not how it works – even if you swear that you will always keep that one watch. We have so many customers that wait so long for a watch, so why would we give it to somebody that we don’t know? That doesn’t make any sense.
We always try to have watches available and the Lange 1 is a good example. It may not be in the combination that a customer wants, so they may have to wait, but the wait is likely to be six months rather than several years, which I think is quite acceptable.
But really, it is about the relationships. It’s like in personal life. You don’t make friends because somebody says, ‘I want to be your friend’. You make friends because you spend time together, you learn about and start to trust each other. It’s not a question of knocking on the door, putting down your credit card and suddenly becoming a friend. That’s not how it works.
WATCHPRO: Going into luxury watch boutiques is not always an easy thing to do. They can be quite intimidating.
WILHELM SCHMID: You know, when somebody doesn’t feel welcome and I get a complaint to that effect, trust me, I’ll dig deeper. Because one thing that is paramount at Lange, as a company we are not arrogant. We are down-to-earth and we are grounded by our watchmakers here.
Arrogance is not a thing that comes to mind when you live and work in Glashütte, and we want to create exactly the same feeling when you enter our boutiques. We may not be able to fulfil your watch wish, but we should be able to make your visit interesting, memorable and warm so that you do not see it as a waste of time.
WATCHPRO: You’ve been at A. Lange & Söhne for almost 14 years now. You must have seen a lot of changes in terms of manufacturing and sales strategies?
WILHELM SCHMID: I would say that basically everything has changed apart from the way we make our watches. The industry itself is completely different. Think about 14 years ago. How many of the players that are really big in the industry today didn’t even exist back then? I think the whole watch market went from niche to professional, which some die-hard collectors regret.
When I joined Lange, we had about 270 points of sales, now we have 58. SIHH became Watches and Wonders, January moved to April, Basel disappeared. Eight or so years ago, everybody thought that physical points of sales and print magazines were a thing of the past and that everything would become digital.
I think some people learned the hard way, that this is not the truth and that we really still want to interact with human beings and tangible assets. Today there are so many channels and we have to cater to all of them.
WATCHPRO: In the past 18 months, there’s been a very noticeable slowdown in the watch market. How has it affected A. Lange & Söhne?
WILHELM SCHMID: I think it’s good because it’s a test of the system. Now we can see who is a real partner because it has become more of a clients’ market. The relationship has to involve effort from both sides. And as much as I’ve talked about customers working to create a relationship, we expect exactly the same from our salespeople.
In the peak times, there were brands and individuals that were doing well because they weren’t really involved in sales, but more a form of distribution. Now the market has turned, they will struggle.
We need to understand that what goes up, will come down, and may or may not go up again. Right now, Lange is still in a very comfortable situation where most of our watches have waiting times. But it’s good that the system gets a stress test and that some people receive a wake-up call and realise that they have to run a little quicker. I like that.
At Lange, we are more interested in cultivating collectors and from what we see the number of collectors – especially young ones – has grown significantly. So when the ‘investor collectors’ started to pull out because they found other areas where they could make easier money, our business model meant that we remained in a fairly comfortable position.
WATCHPRO: How has your collector base changed over time?
WILHELM SCHMID: I think collecting comes from within – you are a collector because you’re never happy with what you have. It’s not a question of gender, age, or culture. Of course, it is a question of available funds, because it’s not inexpensive to dive into the hobby, but I haven’t really seen a change, other than, generally speaking, collectors are older in Europe than they are in America, the Middle East, or Asia.
WATCHPRO: In terms of retail, which works best for you – multibrand retailers, monobrand boutiques, selling direct or online?
WILHELM SCHMID: Very clearly, monobrand boutiques are the future for brands like A. Lange & Söhne. There is no better way to understand our clients than to talk to them directly without a middleman. For our small number of watches, that’s ideal.
If you produce a lot more than 5-6,000 watches, it’s almost impossible to have that personal interaction with all your clients, because it’s a numbers game and there’s a limit to what one person can do. We are still in that sweet spot. If you’re a lot bigger, that can’t be your strategy. If you are a lot smaller, you don’t have the financial backbone to do what we do.
WATCHPRO: Do you think that online selling is too impersonal for a brand like Lange?
WILHELM SCHMID: We offer it, but there’s no big pull on it. If somebody wants to spend that amount of money, he or she wants a personal interaction and to sit down and talk to someone about the watch. We’re not an impulse buy and our clients don’t want to have just the product, they want to have the full story.
The digital universe and ecommerce are too transactional for them. Online is a great way to support the moment of truth, when two people meet in person. Whatever we do, from Watches and Wonders, to our car events, to the interviews that I give, it should lead the way to that moment of truth. And then, you know, it’s up to the client to decide whether A. Lange & Söhne delivers or under-delivers on our promises.
WATCHPRO: A. Lange & Söhne is possibly the most well-known German watch brand today. What defines German watchmaking for you?
WILHELM SCHMID: First of all, I don’t believe that there is ‘German watchmaking’ or ‘Swiss watchmaking’. You can buy a Swiss made watch for €200 or for a few million Euros – they are so totally different, so obviously there is no definition for Swiss watchmaking as there is no common denominator. Instead, I think there’s fine watchmaking and that is an expression of the culture you operate out of.
Germany is known for engineering and a no-nonsense approach. All of our watches are waterproof, even the minute repeaters. Most of my Swiss colleagues question that point as you can’t hear the watch under water. But that is a typical German approach – we would not take a shortcut, we would rather work on a system to improve it.
The flip side to that coin is that our watches are usually heavier, bulkier, thicker. There is nothing in life that is perfect but clearly there are enough people out there that like that specific combination of Lange attributes. For us, a watch has two souls – the opulence on the back and the readability and legibility on the front and I think that’s the package that our clients like from us.
WATCHPRO: That’s quite simplistic.
WILHELM SCHMID: We are watchmakers. If you talk to our people in the manufacture, you will not talk to people that wrote the marketing handbook, they will be very down to earth and they develop their craft to a level that normal people will be unable to reach.
Think about the huge difference between the very understated dial in almost all cases. And then the beauty if you turn it around, these are the two souls and the really special part is always hidden, it’s never in your face. Our goal is to make the watches as beautiful as possible without neglecting the purpose for making them in the first place.
WATCHPRO: For you, which model best sums up A. Lange & Söhne?
WILHELM SCHMID: That is very easy to answer, it’s the Datograph Up/Down that we launched in 2012. I joined Lange in December 2010 and I’ll never forget my first SIHH in January 2011 because I was so overwhelmed by everything. It was about six weeks after I joined and I still have to thank Tino and Tony [production director Tino Bobe and director of product development Anthony de Haas], for guiding me through that time and the following year.
I learned so much from the development of the Datograph Up/Down. I love chronographs and the Datograph Up/Down just occupies that special moment, which sets it apart from the other watches.
WATCHPRO: All A. Lange & Söhne timepieces are classic and elegant, as well as being incredibly technical. Is there anywhere that you wouldn’t go with the brand?
WILHELM SCHMID: Our emphasis is on legibility. You know, a double, triple, quadruple tourbillon is a huge achievement, but it’s just not us. Anything that is watchmaking for the sake of watchmaking is probably not backed up by the Lange DNA. So, we wouldn’t go down this route – even though we could do – because that’s not really aligned with what our clients expect from us.
WATCHPRO: You came from the automotive industry and since you’ve been at Lange, the brand has been indelibly linked to classic cars. Why do you think the two sit together so harmoniously? And what does each one take from the other industry?
WILHELM SCHMID: Yes, I have a weakness for classic cars. When I joined, we were looking for a platform outside of watchmaking, which was aligned with our DNA. We are definitely not a red-carpet brand, so we looked to architecture, art, music, racing, sports, and so on, but so many brands were already occupying that ground.
Then we paused on the elegance of vintage cars and were interested in the similarities with watchmaking. You know, you need very skilled craftsmen to produce these cars in the first place, and also to maintain them. They all usually come with a great history, their design is always outstanding and they survive for long periods of time.
It’s mechanical art – art on wheels or art on wrists – and that’s what differentiates these vintage cars from normal automobiles, and our watches from normal watches.