Longines goes compact with new Spirit Zulu Time

Longines has revealed a new, smaller version of its Spirit Zulu Time, with its case diameter shrunk from 42mm to 39mm.

This makes the watch more accessible than ever, with 39mm timepieces increasingly popular in recent years among both men and women. Where a 42mm watch can appear overly large on many wrists, at 39mm we think the new Longines will attract a larger audience, while suiting the current trend for smaller stainless steel timepieces.

The watch is otherwise the same as before. This means it has a 24-hour scale on a bidirectional rotating ceramic bezel and an additional hand that points at the hour in a second time zone, making the watch a great option for frequent travellers who want to keep an eye on the time back home.

The Spirit Zulu Time 39mm is available with dial and bezel colour options of black, blue and green, with stainless steel bracelets, NATO straps and leather straps with contrast stitching also available. The flagship of the range pairs a brown dial and bezel with 18K yellow gold numerals and the outside edge of the bezel finished in the same precious metal.

Longines has used ‘old radium’ Super-LumiNova for the hands and Arabic numerals to give the watch a vintage feel when illuminated at night.

The name is a nod to some of the earliest dual-time zone watches produced by Longines back in 1925. Those watches featured the Zulu flag on their dial – itself a reference to ‘Zulu’ being used for the letter ‘Z’ in the phonetic alphabet and designated as universal time for aviators and members of the armed forces.

Like its larger sibling, the new 39mm model uses a Longines calibre automatic movement with chronograph certification (referenced by five stars on the dial) and 72 hours of power reserve. The watch is certified as resistant to magnetism according to the ISO764 standard, meaning it has resistance to fields of 600 to 800 gauss.

The movement lets the wearer adjust the second time zone independent of the primary time, and the second zone is read by looking at the secondary hand and the 24-hour rotating bezel.