The Longines Manzon is one of the more striking objects to emerge from the Swiss watch industry's experimental years of the early 1970s — a period when the quartz crisis was pushing mechanical watchmakers to compete on design rather than technology alone. Designed by Serge Manzon, the French designer whose work straddled jewellery and industrial design with equal fluency, the model applied an almost sculptural logic to the watch: four bold rectangular lugs radiating from a square case like a compass rose, the whole conceived as jewellery as much as timekeeper.

In sterling silver, the architectural character of the Manzon is even more pronounced. The material has developed a patina entirely consistent with its age — the kind of lived-in surface that silver acquires over decades and that no new piece can replicate. The black dial, framed by the square case and its distinctive cross-shaped lug structure, creates a graphic contrast that remains strikingly modern.

The watch presents on its original crocodile strap with original buckle — a complete, unmodified ensemble that has survived intact across more than half a century. Finding a Manzon with its period strap and buckle is genuinely uncommon.

A Longines for the collector who values design conviction over convention.