3/28/22 Mixed Feelings On The Omega Swatch Collaboration?

     Omega is one of the upper end watch-making companies, with their Speedmaster being their top brand name, since it is the watch worn by astronauts when they went to the moon.  As a matter of fact, we just celebrated the 50th year of that achievement (1969), which I only know because there is now a 50th anniversary Speedmaster in gold with black onyx stone hour markers, truly a watch I wouldn't owning at some point in my life.

    Anyways, that is the grandeur that is Omega, Swatch, on the other hand, makes plastic watches for teenagers, and there was a time back when I was in high school that I might have wanted and even had one of their "toy watches", they do not belong in the same sentence.  Omega watches start around $5000, while Swatch watches start under $100.  It turns out, Swatch is a bigger company, and they own Omega, so a collaboration was born and now a new line of watches is being introduced, just this past weekend.  The new line is basically a clone Speedmaster, in one of 11 colors, representing the nine planets, sun and the moon.

    I don't want to like them, because I feel they are just a rip off of the Omega watch and to me, people that buy these types of watches have worked hard and become a certain level of successful in their lives, but looking at the different colors mixed in, I also can't help but really feel like I need to get at least a couple.  It is a little shocking to me that they released these watches at a very decent price of $260.  I don't know if regular people will be able to buy them at that price, but that is what they are advertising at the moment.  They have also clarified that the price will not go up and that they will eventually offer them at more than the Swatch stores, which currently is the only place one can buy one (well, two is what they are limiting people to buy per visit).

    I love a color that pops and the one for the sun called "Mission to the Sun" is yellow colored, which really looks shiny and fun.  There is a pink one for Venus, Earth's is green and blue, Mars has a red representative, and so forth.  They are made of a ceramic plastic composite, so they are not really metal, but from the images, they still look pretty great.  They are also keeping the dimensions in line with the original Speedmaster at 42mm.