Nomos Tangente 38: Why It Made my Collection

The air in a Berlin café carries a unique weight—a blend of roasted coffee, old paper, and the quiet hum of a city with a troubled past reinventing its future. Here, a journalist sits, Leuchtturm notebook open, his Leica M6 resting on the table like a trusted friend. His tools are chosen carefully for purpose. So what timepiece adorns the wrist? I picture a Nomos.

Founded in 1990, just two months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Nomos occupies the old train station building in the picturesque small village that is known as the watchmaking capital of Germany: Glashütte.

Photography by Nomos Glashütte

The building over the road just behind the glasshouse of Nomos, well that is A. Lange & Söhne, the flags on the left, they decorate the car park of Glashütte Original. Founding a watch company here right next to the existing high horology powerhouses was a bold move, but I am sincerely glad they did.

Two years after their inception, Nomos released their first lineup consisting of four models: Tangente, Orion, Ludwig and Tetra. While all the models have their unique merits, in my eyes the Tangente most purely distills the core Nomos design elements; with a blend between classic and modern that makes this model so timeless.

The Tangente: A Masterclass in Bauhaus Design

Kodak ColourPlus - Pentax MX Sigma 50mm F2.8

The case is a beautifully thin 6.6mm coin-like profile, with a flat top meeting the sides at a razor sharp edge. The Nomos hallmark long lugs are in angular form and are a clear design feature of this watch, breaking the flat plane with a sharp 45 degree angle as they bend to the shape of the wrist. A mirror like polish all around brings allure to this otherwise subtle piece.

Being of a bezel-less construction, the dial dominates the front; on the 38 mm it’s huge and gorgeous, featuring a subtle grainy texture reflectivity in its silvery white paint. The even numbers are printed precisely in a slender Bauhaus font and sunken at 6 is a rippled sub-seconds dial. The dial feels perfectly proportioned in its use of negative space and feels classy and modern all at the same time. Overlaying the dial are a set of slender baton hands with a cornflour blue colour achieved through heating.

Securing the watch to the wrist is a strap made from what is widely considered the world’s finest leather: Shell Cordovan. Nomos sources this exclusively from the legendary Horween tannery in Chicago, a family-run institution since 1905. This horsehide is a specific, dense ‘shell’ from the hindquarters, renowned for its incredible durability and unique non-creasing quality. The result is a strap that feels substantial yet supple, designed to develop a rich patina and last a lifetime.

Kodak ColourPlus - Pentax MX Sigma 50mm F2.8

In terms of its protection specs, the crystal is sapphire along with the back-glass (if you pick the exhibition caseback); but the waterproofing is only 30m, and the polished 316L stainless steel case would scuff easily: this is very much a dress watch.

The large dial in combination with the long lugs make the watch feel bigger than its 38 mm dimensions and if you have a wrist size smaller than 6.8 inches then I would recommend the smaller 36 variation.

Slimline Vertical Integration: Nomos’s Movements

What makes Nomos stand apart as a small manufacturer is their vertical integration with in-house movements. The transition to making their own movements happened in the early 2000s as a direct response to the supply issues with ETA movements.

This watch, being from my own personal collection, features the older generation of Nomos Alpha movement: a beautiful hand-winding movement based on the ETA Peseux 7001 with a significant redesign by Nomos. The proprietary elements include a Glashütte three-quarter plate, a stop-seconds mechanism and an improved ratchet mechanism for a better ‘click’ sound while winding. For finishing Glashütte stripes are applied along with heat blued screws. These are significant changes, and calling this a 7001 clone would simply not be fair.

Kodak ColourPlus - Pentax MX Sigma 50mm F2.8

You can also get an automatic DUW 3001 movement in your Tangente; Nomos calls this Neomatic. These movements feature changes such as a switch from a balance cock to a balance bridge but they do come with sacrifices: the 6.6mm case profile increases to 7.2mm, and the rotor, whilst decorated, makes the three quarter plate less visible.

There is a choice between hand-wound or automatic, but allow me to paint a picture: the quiet morning ritual of making coffee and winding your watch. In that simple, tactile moment, time becomes your own.

The new generation of Nomos hand-wound movements include the Nomos in-house escapement where the Alpha version did not. The in-house escapement features a hair spring manufactured by Nomos; it is exceedingly rare for a manufacturer to make these in-house due to the difficulty of this dying craft.

Final Thoughts: Why the Tangente Earned Its Place

The Tangente is surgically clean, but not sterile. Offering a distinctive modern design language whilst still remaining timeless. I have always held objects that exhibit timelessness in high regard, they master design to the point of being beyond a single era. The slimness of the Tangente always amazes me, along with seeing the three-quarter plate of the movement through the display caseback. It’s a watch that I wish I had the lifestyle to wear every day.

Picking the exact Tangente reference for my collection was tricky; I didn’t pick the date model or the model with the power reserve as I wanted a minimalistic symmetrical dial. I considered all forms but decided that the traditional reference was the purest form, with the tweaks of the 38 mm size and a sapphire case back to see that in-house movement.

Nomos continue to bring elements of high horology onto more wrists and that in my eyes is brilliant. They are truly a watch brand for the eyes of the wearer rather than the observer, and that, my friend, is the whole point: collect for yourself.