Lange Akademie

In the watch industry today it is very difficult to get trained for various brands if one works in a retail environment. From experience I can tell you that the watch brands do a real half assed job in conveying their message of why their brand is so important, until last year A Lange & Sohne launched their very prestigious and respected Lange Akademie for their retail partners world wide.

Lange spared no expense at all. I mean why should they right, they are arguably the absolute best watch brand in the world. The Akademie was a separate building that was erected right near to their Manufacturing facility in Glasshutte Germany. This building consisting of two floors was a state of the art facility including a classroom with the coolest hard wood floors with the most modern German lighting and fixtures. Two students two one desk, a futuristic vertical blind system, and at the far end of the room behind the classroom, working watch stations to teach all the elements involved in making these masterpieces, including finishing, polishing and engraving that make this watch so legendary. The classroom provided a very first hand one on one experience of getting intimate with the brand on so many different levels.

I have to say the Germans have a Bad wrap at being stoic, cold and completely emotionless boring Krauts. I am here to tell you quite the contrary. I feel that in all the watch trainings or any kind of meetings I have ever been involved in, this was by far the most amazing experience I have ever been able to be apart of. Granted when your selling luxury your treated differently, but people this was on an unparalleled universe. Every morning for those three days was an honor and a privilege to be apart of something so incredibly special.

We were fussed over and treated like kings from the food which was prepared by top chefs, to the entertainment of going out in the evenings with Lange top execs, and even the frigging classroom felt effortless because it was something that evoked so much passion and enthusiasm by discussing current product, development of future product and after sales service as well as role playing with different sales techniques. I got to learn how to engrave a balance cock by Lange master watch engraver and was even shown how regulation of the movement was done by adding weights to the movement. At the end we endured this exam which was a test of knowledge on what he had learned on the history, the brand and what makes it tick. I passed. Thank the frigging lord! I left with so much more than I came with and I will never forget how incredibly warm and cool the Germans really are despite the fact that they worship David Hasselhoff.

The only thing Lange needs to do is offer this sort of program for serious watch collectors. They would have no problem paying for this sort of thing and lets face it the access is priceless. To be so connected to a brand like Lange in three days was an absolute dream, because after you see how everything is done and then you try it yourself, you end of having a tremendous amount of respect for the people who are involved in creating what might possibly be in my opinion the most perfect watch brand in the world today!