Omega Seamaster celebrates its 75th anniversary

By Kim Parker

There aren’t many explorers that are still ready for adventure at the ripe old age of 75. But the oceanic Omega Seamaster collection is still going strong, and the storied Swiss watchmaker is launching a line of special marine-hued timepieces to mark this momentous milestone.

The Seamaster collection, which represents Omega’s iconic water resistant watches, can actually trace its origins back almost a century. In 1932, the house launched the Omega Marine, which was the first diver’s watch available to civilian divers outside of the armed forces. It was tested to a depth of 73 meters below the surface of Lake Geneva, and even remained water-resistant at a depth of 135 meters when tested inside the specialist Laboratory of Watchmaking Research in Neuchatel – the home of the Swiss timepiece industry.

During World War II, Omega sent over 110,000 watches to pilots, soldiers and navigators in Britain’s Ministry of Defence, allowing the maker to make massive strides in the fields of water-resistance, anti-magnetism and toughness, creating timepieces that were destined for the severest of environments.

In 1948, to coincide with Omega’s own centenary, the Seamaster was launched as an elegant wristwatch containing battle-hardened technology, promoted as a timekeeper suitable for “town, sea and country”. With the discovery of the ocean’s deepest point, the Challenger Deep, in 1951 by the British ship Challenger, the world entered a new era of underwater exploration and the Seamaster was poised to become the watch that would accompany such unprecedented adventures.

The next iteration of the watch, the Seamaster 300, was unveiled in 1957. Wave after wave of new models has followed in the decades since, offering ever more innovations and greater levels of water resistance. Each new evolution can now be tested in real underwater environs, guided by the critical certification standards set by METAS (the Swiss Federal Institute of Metrology).

Now, Omega has revealed a line of 11 new watches – with models from seven different Seamaster collections, ranging from the fashion-forward to fully functional deep water editions – all in a novel shade called Summer Blue to celebrate the watery world of this best-in-class timekeeper.

Receiving this special aquatic restyling are Omega’s Aqua Terra (in both 38mm and 41mm sizes), the 43mm stainless steel Aqua Terra World Timer, the Omega Seamaster 300 (a direct descendant of the original model from 1957), the Diver 300M (Omega’s classic diver’s watch), Planet Ocean 600M (the tech-lover’s choice), the Ploprof (taken from the French ‘PLOngeur PROfessionnel’, it’s one of the toughest and crush-resistant diver’s watches ever made), and the Professional Ultra Deep (a tribute to the record-breaking dive into the Mariana Trench in 2019).

Each edition will also bear a striking commemorative case back featuring the Seamaster logo, with a trident-wielding Poseidon, and two seahorses (from Omega’s 1956 original logo). Should the god of the sea ever think his wrists look in need of some embellishment, he could do much worse than to consider Omega’s original salty sea dog watch – especially with its fabulous new marine makeover.

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