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Though they are innovative, sporty and enjoy a good price-quality ratio, Omega watches don’t get their fair share of success in France. Yet the Swatch Group’s non-specialist watch company is a huge hit everywhere else.

On July 21, 1969, as Buzz Aldrin became the first man to set foot on the moon, the dial of his Speed-master chronograph read o2h56 GMT. The Speed-master was an Omega model. Forty years later, what fine Swiss watchmaker would produce and extraterrestrial watch outfitted with a mechanical movement legendary for its reliability and accuracy, all for $2,675? Not a one, save for Omega. Omega, which entered the Swatch Group in 1985, has always striven to make high quality but affordable watches. In the nineteenth century it was one of the first watch companies to industrialize its production in order to provide precision watches at reasonable prices. Omega’s history is rich with spectacular productions. In 1848 Louis Brandt opened his workshop in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. A few years later the workshop was moved to Bienne, where it became a manufacture, employed six hundred people and began producing one hundred thousand watches a year. In 1894 the introduction of the Omega pocket caliber 19” (omega is a synonym for “accomplishment,” like the first and twenty-fourth letters of the Greek alphabet) was such a success that the company adopted its name. the newly minted Omega brand then embarked on a long quest for accuracy, winning several contests and being chosen as official timekeeper of the Olympic Games more than twenty times (including Beijing in 2008 and Vancouver in 2010).

Omega’s strategy was perfectly planned: to use assembly-line production to manufacture moderately priced precision watches. As can be expected, Omega watches sold by the millions. In the4 1960s the brand became world famous, thanks to two benchmark watches launched simultaneously in 1957, the Sea-master 300 and the Speed-master. Thirty years later Omega made a technical breakthrough by taking on the mechanical watch escapement, a key component that hadn’t been altered in about two hundred years. Devised in cooperation with the great English watchmaker George Daniels, Omega’s co-axial escapement allows the movement to run with a bare minimum of lubrication, thereby ensuring greater stability of timekeeping accuracy. Introduced in 1999 after seven years of development, the co-axial escapement now equips 80 percent of Omega mechanical models, or production of more than three hundred thousand movements per year.

The brand is particularly appealing for those desiring to enter the world or mechanical timepieces without going bust, despite that the company has recently increased its prices while increasing the number of precious metal models, limited editions, etc. With a production of approximately 650,000 to 700,000 pieces a year. Omega is the global leader in sales of watches priced between $3,000 and $4,800. Its collections are vast (more than a thousand models), but uneven in terms of design. The Constellation line, designed at the time by Gerald Genta, a mainstay of the brand’s sales, for instance, doesn’t exactly break new ground. Despite a makeover in 2009, this collection of ladies watches, which is highly successful in Asia, is little sought-after in France.

On the other hand, the Sea-master line comes highly recommended and has been one of the company’s best sellers since Pierce Brosnan wore a Sea-master as James Bond in Golden-Eye (1995). Since then the brand has invented in product placement, and for each new Bond film releases a special-edition watch that rarely generates great interest. In the Permanent collection, Bond’s stylish Sea-master 300 is an excellent diving watch water-resistant to one thousand feet. It is equipped with a COSC-certified automatic movement (caliber Omega 1120 with an ETA 2892 base) and is available for a mere $1,930. Omega’s classic line also features a variety of chronograph models, including the elegant Sea-master Aqua Terra, with black dial and brown crocodile bracelet. One may prefer the simplistic all-steel chronometer version launched in 2009 with co-axial escapement ($7,700). In the same family, the $3,450 Sea-master Planet Ocean is water resistant to nearly two thousand feet and features the COSC-certified caliber Omega 2500 with co-axial escapement. One should also mention the renowned PloProf: a professional diving watch launched in the early 1970s that the watchmaker released in 2009. The contemporary version is water resistant to approximately 3,937 feet and has the caliber Omega 8500 with co-axial escapement. It cost $6,700.

The equally legendary Speed-master line includes the famous Moon-watch, the hand-wound mechanical chronograph (Omega 1861 caliber on a Nouvelle Lemania 1873 base) that was taken for a test run on the moon. The Speed-master comes in several versions, including a moon phase released in 2003,l and column-wheel automatic chronographs, some of which have a split-time counter or GMT function (as in the Speed-master Broad Arrow, retailing for $12,600). In 2008 Omega profited from its role as official timekeeper of the Beijing Olympic Games by releasing limited-edition watches with dials adorned with the Olympic rings.

Finally, dress-watch aficionados will find what they’re looking for in the De Ville line. The remarkable Hour Vision ($14,400) appears here with a partially visible movement on the sides of the case. Introduced in 2007, the watch is fitted with the latest automatic caliber developed in-house, which incorporates co-axial technology. It comes with a GMT function and an annual calendar. Above all it testifies to the determination of Omega to advance in the field of luxury watch making.

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AUTOMATIC CHIC

Omega’s revitalized ladymatic series of mechanical watches was two years in the design and development stages. It uses a name from the brand’s archives that dates back to 1955, but that’s all that is retro about this series. Everything else is brand new.

To launch the line, Omega turned to brand ambassadors Nicole Kidman – the face behind the feminine but strong line. The award-winning Kidman walked a runaway during Omega’s Beijing launch of the Ladymatic wearing a stunning diamond-adorned version. Posters and ads with her wearing various styles of the Ladymatic watches are appearing internationally as part of the global premier of the line.

“I love diamonds, they are my favorite stone, so the diamond version is especially easy for me to wear,” quips Kidman. But on a serious note, she contends that what makes this line so special is the fact that “it’s not just a men’s line that they made smaller for women; it is a true women’s line.”

The late Nicholas G. Hayek had the foresight to insist in 2008 the brand build a mechanical watch line for lades. According to Jean-Claude Monachon, Omega’s vice-president and head of product development, Hayek’s only directives were that they utilize the Co-Axial 8520 movement and be daring. Monachon admitted that at first they searched the brand’s archives looking for a design on which to base the line, but couldn’t find anything fashion forward enough to run with. So they essentially started from scratch. Omega’s designers were inspired by the undulating lines offered femininity and harmony. Then, for high-tech fusion, they added a ceramic ring to the case, which is offered in either steel or yellow or rose gold. The end result is a blend of state of the art mechanics, high-tech materials and haute fashion.

Omega

That it would actually work one day is not something that anyone believed ten years ago—except, of course, George Daniels and Nicolas G. Hayek. By now, of course, you know we are taking about the complex Co-Axial escapement, which has finally completely grown out of its baby shoes and learned to walk—and is just begging is something we are only reminded of when we think about the progressive delivery times of the first models, which went out to a privilege circe of 500 Omega retailers worldwide. The leap needed to make this movement ready for full serial production—rather than the hand-regulated and optimized assembly initially called for—turned out to be much bigger than originally thought.

Getting ready for serial production, the original Co-Axial caliber had to undergo a number of modifications and was thus continuously and progressively developed. Along with the 2007 modes, the movement’s frequency was decreased from 28,800 vph (4 hertz) to the more unusual 25,200 vph (3.5 hertz) in order to sidestep some inherent difficulties. A higher frequency is not necessary for this particular escapement since it gets its chronometer=precise rate stability from the drive impulses decoupling from the balance.

In 2007, the brand presented all the details of the C0-Axial escapement as modified for the first true Omega manufacture caliber of the modern age, a milestone in the company’s history: Caliber 8500. The escapement continues to include lubrication as the long-term results of “dry” Co-Axial movements are less than satisfactory. Thus the most important plus for this escapement design remains high rate stability after careful regulation.

These days, Co-Axial technology is used in a widespread manner throughout Omega’s collection. The whole automatic sector of the revamped Constellation line is outfitted with Co-Axial movements. In the Seamaster family, it is the Planet Ocean and Aqua Tera models that are the main Co-Axial bearers. Among the sporty 300M diver’s watches, the chronometer was the only one to receive the new technology—until this year’s spectacular relaunch of the PloProf. Co-Axial technology is also on the rise in the traditional Speedmaster line. Even the Moon Watch—or at least a chronometer kept to the design of that legendary Speedmaster Professional model—is outfitted with the Co-Axial automatic movement.

The most prominent Co-Axial model family is, of course, the De ville. It is not without ulterior motive that in 1999 Omega used the elegant, timelessly beautiful case of this style icon from the 1960s to introduce the first limited series of the hand-worked Co-Axial Chronometer. Caliber 8500 debuted in the De Ville Hour Vision, and the interesting Annual Calendar variation was also introduced in the Hour Vision case with its side windows. The rectangular and square shapes of the X2 Big Date. The chronographs of the De Ville line, outfitted with the modern technology, for the past few years have been able to break up the a traditional appearance with unusual dial visuals. Particularly noteworthy are the Chronoscope and Rattrapante models. A recitation of current Co-Axial models wuld not be complete without mention of the breathtaking Central Tourbillon, which Omega has also outfitted with a Co-Axial escapement and which also represents another technical milestone.

It will certainly not remain the last.