Line History
The Tangente is, together with Orion, Ludwig and Tetra, one of the four models with which Nomos introduced itself to the public in 1992, just two years after the company's founding. Designed by Susanne Günther, it quickly became the brand's most recognizable face: a slim case, an essential dial with baton indices and thin hands, a small seconds sub-dial placed at 6 o'clock in perfect alignment with the crown at 3 o'clock — a geometric detail that fans of the brand still cite today as the line's visual signature.
The name itself, "Tangente," refers precisely to that imaginary line connecting the crown to the small seconds, underlining how the watch's design stems from a geometric principle before a decorative one — an approach openly indebted to the Bauhaus school, around which Nomos built its public identity from the very start, even though the company was founded decades after that school closed.
Over time the Tangente has been reissued in numerous diameter variants (from the 27 mm of the more compact executions to the 41 mm of the larger versions) and with additional complications — date, power reserve, up to the Neomatik version with an ultra-thin automatic movement — while always remaining recognizable as the same founding line, today probably the most photographed watch whenever "Bauhaus aesthetics" applied to contemporary watchmaking comes up.
Technical Specifications
Main Executions
The line's name is not decorative: it literally describes the imaginary straight line that connects, on the dial, the winding crown at 3 o'clock and the small seconds at 6 o'clock, a geometric alignment that Nomos cites as proof of its design approach, oriented toward structure rather than ornament.