In common with a number of historic brands, 2021 has been meant to be another momentous season for Omega. However came Covid-19 along with the postponement of the latest Bond film, for which the brand had produced its first unlimited official 007 timepiece, followed by the dawning realisation that the Tokyo Olympics will have to be pushed into the next year — leaving the Bienne-based brand with a different wait its hands prior to resuming once again its official timekeeper responsibilities — a situation its held since 1932.
And when it's not something every business could take in its stride, it’s probably not the first time Omega watches will have needed to concern yourself with world-class issues such as these. As if to prove the purpose, the brand takes its title from a business first: a serially generated movement that enabled the era’s watchmakers to create their own repairs using components that are supplied, rather than — as would have been the case — fashioning their own.
For the part, Omega used the hard-won intel it garnered throughout the war to produce the watch that may seal its standing: the Seamaster, a self-winding, waterproof”civilian” form of the Deadly CK2129. Launched in 1948, it might go on to help specify the”tool see” market and now enjoys an admirable”bandwidth” of willing wearers — from 007 to the Duke Of Cambridge.
Exactly the very same season, Omega revolutionised another whole world of critical timekeeping, as it introduced digital time to the London Olympics, linked to a camera that continued to capture the first ever”photo finish’ with what would otherwise have been a”dead heat” in the mens’ 100 metres.
Marking its achievement inside a different arena of competition, in 1952 Omega launched a slimmed-down Seamaster place it dubbed Constellation, in recognition of those eight stars that surround its crest, representing its eight wins at Kew Observatory Chronometer tests. Nevertheless, it was the launching of a”trilogy” of professionally inspired watches five years afterwards that could truly seal the brand’s reputation.
Made to overcome the specific challenges of dependable timemkeeping on earth, sea and from the atmosphere, the Railmaster was the first commercially available watch capable to withstand magnetic fields close to 1,000 (now 15,000) gauss, the upgraded Seamaster 300 greatly enhanced the depth to this beautifully submersible timepiece could voyage and the Speedmaster swiftly outmanoeuvred its own earth-bound origins as a sport chronograph by becoming what's now known simply as the”moon watch”.
Back in January 1961, President Kennedy wore an Omega in his inauguration, and a couple of months afterwards delivered the famous speech where he announced,”This nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade has gone out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth.” Starting in 1962, when astronaut Wally Schirra wore his very own Speedmaster aboard his Mercury spacecraft, Omega would play an integral part in Nasa’s space programme.
In 1965, Nasa certified the Speedmaster for a lot of space assignments and extra-vehicular activity — and the same year a Speedmaster joined the world’s first spacewalk aboard the wrist of Gemini 4 pilot Ed White.
But when the Sixties were to signify something of a purple patch for Omega, the following couple of decades would throw up issues of a larger ordinance than the most brightly colored Swiss watches fabrication could survive. In 1983, an administration consultant and industrial troubleshooter called Nicolas Hayek purchased the firm, forming the Swatch Group in the procedure. The achievement of his novel survival strategy — a plastic-covered quartz timepiece targeted at a mass audience — will guarantee not just the survival of Omega but, finally, twelve or so more significant Swiss and German brands. Nevertheless, it had been at the field of marketing it's to truly come into its own, starting with its debut on the wrist of Pierce Brosnan’s 007 in the 17th Bond outing, Goldeneye, along with the signing of supermodel Cindy Crawford as a brand ambassador. Both relationships have outlasted others in their various fields, together with the next-gen of the Crawford clan, Presley and Kaia Gerber, joining the ranks of both Omega ambassadors in 2021.
Debuted in 1948 like a self-winding, watertight”civilian” version of the Deadly CK2129, the Seamaster has served Omega — and history — nicely. After hostilities resume next March, Omega will return on board once more supporting defenders Emirates Team New Zealand — and, for the first time, serving as the contest’s official timekeeper. To mark the big event, Omega has released this special variant Seamaster Planet Ocean, complete with five-minute regatta”pre-start” period mark on the bezel and the AC emblem engraved on the sapphire case back. Omega will create 2,021 pieces out there. #5,650.
