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New: Ace x NOMOS Tangente 38 Amsterdam Limited Edition

Ace Jewelers introduces the NOMOS Tangente 38 Amsterdam, a limited edition of 45 pieces.

Earlier this week, we introduced the NOMOS Tangente 38 Amsterdam over at Ace Jewelers, our mothership. It’s the third watch in our ongoing Amsterdam series, and our fourth limited edition NOMOS in total – the first being the funky Orion 100 Years De Stijl. In this post I’d like to give a glimpse behind the scenes of its conception.

If you mention NOMOS’ watches to anyone with even the slightest interest in watches, the first model that springs to mind is the Tangente. Without any doubt it’s their most emblematic watch – in fact, NOMOS refers to it as ‘the archetypal NOMOS watch’. Yet, three limited editions in, we hadn’t touched upon this timeless classic. Well, there’s no escaping it now – our fourth would have to be a Tangente.

Now, this is where it gets hard. I know the word icon gets thrown around a lot, but as far as I’m concerned in case of the Tangente it’s warranted. And how do you improve upon an icon? How do you add your own character whilst respecting the original design? There’ve been a lot of limited edition Tangente models over the years, especially in the first decade of the 2000’s. Some of them I’d consider a success, others not so much. Many times with just a dash of colour, or a retailers name replacing the signature, whilst others featured more elaborate changes to the design.

One thing we didn’t want to deviate from was our Amsterdam-theme. We had done two Amsterdam NOMOS before, and to make it a proper series we felt we needed at least three. So this would have to be a Tangente Amsterdam, meaning dressed in the colors black, white and red. We’re getting somewhere here.

But how to incorporate these colours and make the watch stand out? Dark dial, white print, red seconds hand? Meh… But it suddenly hit me. One of my favourite releases of the past few years has been the Tangente 100 Jahre Bauhaus. Here the Tangente features an additional design element in the form of a contrasting minute track. It didn’t take long to put together a couple of design proposals based on the Bauhaus design, using the color codes of the Amsterdam series.

We sent them in to the NOMOS design team and it all went fast from there. NOMOS liked our proposals, sent back with their favourite with only a minor addition in the form of the XXX’s at 6:00, we approved (or rather, we were IN LOVE!). Fast-forward a couple months and here’s the prototype. WOW – it works even better in real life!

I must admit I never saw the Tangente as a watch for myself, although I greatly admired its design. Well, no longer. Although our prototype doesn’t run and I’m working from home (which might or might not be ‘dressed’ in my swimming trunks), I’ve been prancing around with it for a couple of days now – and yes, I’ll have mine – lucky #13 please ! It’s a proper stunner, full of character, powerful yet subtle and delicate. I simply love it.

The Ace x NOMOS Tangente 38 Amsterdam is available exclusively at Ace Jewelers.