1970s: Golden Rose of Baden-Baden
When the quartz revolution of the 1970s changed the industry forever, it took some time for designers, and of course their employers, to recover from an “everything is possible“ mentality and return to their primary role, creating beauty on the wrist. Longines designers succeeded brilliantly, with Flore Marine (1970), Vagues (1970), Kleopatra (1975) and Volubilis (1978) all winning a prestigious German award, the Golden Rose of Baden-Baden.
Design breakthroughs
In 1972, Paris-based French designer Serge Manzon created specially for Longines a series of solid silver watches. Even today, these avant-garde designs remain a source of inspiration for not a few watch manufacturers. One year later, a Longines model called Prototype won the coveted Prize of the City of Geneva award.
Technical advances support aesthetic developments
By 1960 Longines set new records with the thinnest electromagnetic watch ever made. Nineteen years later, in 1979, its Feuille d'Or models, fitted with caliber L795, broke the two-millimeter thinness barrier to become the world's slimmest watch, measuring an astonishing 1.98 mm from front to back. The secret: a quartz movement totally integrated into the case.
