180 YEARS OF

porary Elegance. “e king of our classic watches,” von
Känel says, “is denitely La Grande Classique de
Longines,” the leader of the Classic Elegance group. e
king has reigned for two decades. It was launched in 1992
as a line of ultra-thin, round, men’s and ladies’ steel quartz
watches with clean lines and simple dials featuring
Roman numerals or thin hour markers. Two years later,
with no advertising behind it, La Grande Classique de
Longines became Longines’s best-selling collection, a
position it held until 2007. Its popularity has not waned.
Today it is the most copied Longines watch.
Also in the Classic Elegance category are what von
Känel calls “the bread-and-butter models” that are very
popular in China, like Presence and Flagship. Flagship is
the star right now. Why? Because the design matches Chinese
tastes for simplicity. And the size matches Chinese
wrists. You have to give the Chinese the size they want.” For
years, Longines has oered models in a range of sizes in all
its markets. La Grande Classique de Longines, for example,
has cases in ve dierent diameters (24, 29, 33, 35 and
37 mm). e Longines Master Collection of round mechanical
watches comes in nine dierent case sizes.
Complementing the Classical series are the two Contemporary
Elegance collections of ladies’ watches, mostly
quartz, the rectangular Longines DolceVita and the round
Longines PrimaLuna. Longines DolceVita was born in
1997 as a rectangular alternative to La Grande Classique. It
was an instant hit. For nine consecutive years a ladies’
bracelet Longines DolceVita watch was the brand’s bestselling
single model. Von Känel boasts that since its debut,
Longines DolceVita has sold more than 1 million pieces.
How important is the elegance positioning to
Longines? e seven collections in the Elegance family
account for nearly 50 percent of Longines’s total sales.
Longines has sold
more than 1 million
Longines DolceVita
watches over the
past 15 years.
Longines’s
Flagship Heritage
watch is a big hit
in China.
LONGINES SPECIAL WatchTime | 11