The new Longines Flagship Heritage is a timelessly elegant wristwatch

In a world where watches are becoming ever larger and more complicated, as manufacturers battle to prove who can fit more functions into their movements, Longines has just announced a breath of fresh air.

It’s called the Flagship Heritage, there are three versions available, and I think it looks absolutely fabulous. The watch has a 38.5 mm stainless steel case and is offered in silver with gold highlights or either silver or blue with white metal features.

All three come with a colour-matched alligator strap with new Heritage pin buckle, and the dial is protected by a scratch-resistant sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating.

The most striking detail of this watch is the combined date and moon phase complication at the six o’clock position; the former uses a 1-31 dial with a hand pointing at today's date, while the latter rotates to show the moon phase throughout each month. All three versions are water resistant to 30 metres.

The Longines Flagship Heritage is powered by the Swiss company’s own L899.5 automatic movement, which has 72 hours of power reserve. Sadly the movement cannot be viewed through an exhibition case back, as the rear of the watch is covered by a screw-down gold and blue accented Flagship medallion.

Sticking to simplicity over complexity, the dial of the Flagship Heritage has a set of applied hour markers and arrow-shaped gold hands, coated with thin strips of Super-LumiNova for nighttime visibility.

Not a limited-edition model, all three versions are available now and priced at ￡2,850.