Omega’s Winter Olympic watches make winning use of colour
Official timekeeper celebrates Winter Games with vibrant new Seamaster collection, and colour is also the stand-out feature of new Bell & Ross timepiece
This watch column took a break over Lunar New Year , and I want it known (publicly) that I spent the time off sifting through the hundreds of watches that have come to market since the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie Genève, in January, and before Baselworld later this month (they are the world’s two biggest watch fairs). Privately, the truth is that I spent recent weeks trying to understand why people like the Winter Olympics. Ice dancing is not a sport, surely? It’s all very impressive, but anyone who has seen Blades of Glory won’t be convinced. And curling? Come on!
Back to the watches, and in an Olympian segue that is high on technical difficulty and artistic merit, I start this week with Omega’s latest Games-related timepieces. I suppose if there’s a column theme this week, it is colour – and the Omega Seamaster Olympic Games Collection goes all out with variations corresponding to the Olympic rings in blue, yellow, black, green and red.
Omega is an official Olympic Games partner, so it is no surprise that the Swiss watchmaker is trundling out Games-related timepieces, and this collection is a nice way to inject non-traditional watch colours via the strap and accents on the dial.
The design is partially inspired by stopwatches used in previous Games, including those in Montreal and Innsbruck, but that’s for the serious nerds. Another sporty feature is the pulse reader on the outside ring on the dial. The steel case measures 39.5mm and inside is a Master Chronometer 8800 movement. Priced at HK$44,300, the edition is limited to 2,032 pieces in each colour – a nod to Omega having the rights as the official Games timekeeper until 2032.