“The colour blue really suited Pierce,” remembers Oscar-winning costume designer Lindy Hemming. “I was dressing him in lots of blue shirts and the blue bezel and dial of the Omega Seamaster matched perfectly. Plus, blue suited Commander Bond’s naval background.”
As a swap from the Rolex Submariner – James Bond’s default selection since Dr No bar a number of doubtful meanderings into digital Seikos within the seventies – Hemming’s selection of the Omega Seamaster 300 was excellent in each approach. “Beautiful,” even, based on Vesper Lynd through the dining-car scene in On line casino Royale, by comparability to the watch she blithely assumes 007’s kind would put on (Rolex, clearly).
It’s not simply the blue although, Lindy. As excellent as Omega’s professional-spec diving watch suited Mr Brosnan’s twinkling eyes and deck uniform when she first dressed him for Goldeneye all the way in which again in 1995, the Seamaster actually is the default selection for Britain’s best seamen, albeit these whose operational bonuses can afford it. For everybody else, right here’s all the pieces it’s essential know concerning the Seamaster 300, from its heritage to essentially the most wanted fashions right this moment.
Omega’s Army Pedigree
At this time, the Royal Navy’s Particular Boat Service – notoriously tougher than their landlubber SAS contemporaries are virtually completely kitted out with specifically engraved, proudly war-torn Seamaster 300 Professionals. However the Swiss model’s service roots prolong again a lot additional. Rugged, legible, extremely waterproof, chronometer-level precision Omega timepieces have been kitted-out to British servicemen and pilots virtually solely throughout World Warfare II. See the wrist of Tom Hardy’s Spitfire pilot in Dunkirk for additional cinematic proof of that specific pedigree.
Warfare, in spite of everything, accelerates technological innovation, as this yr’s Seventieth-anniversary Seamaster reissues remind us. Between 1940 and 1945, Omega delivered greater than 110,000 timepieces to the British Ministry of Defence. After the conflict, as we steadily progressed via the jet age towards the nuclear age and eventually the area race, this breathless interval of innovation discovered Omega on the peak of its engineering creativity.
It responded to the demand for a timepiece with the identical strong know-how and dependable conception as its army efforts, however extra aesthetically suited to a extra educational existence. To not point out the burgeoning craze for SCUBA diving, heightened by the garlanded cinematic exploits of Jacques Cousteau.
Launched in 1948, the Seamaster line was Omega’s first official ‘family’ of watches. Modelled on the ‘Watch. Wrist. Waterproof.’ military-spec items made for the MoD, these extra classically designed timepieces boasted higher water-resistance than their army counterparts due to the novel use of O-ring gasket know-how. Beforehand, waterproof watches relied on lead or shellac gaskets, which have been simply affected by a temperature change – one thing, that tends to occur once you dive deeper and deeper.
Omega turned to the hatches on submarines used through the conflict for inspiration and got here up with a resilient rubber seal within the Seamaster’s ultimate case design. This remained intact at depths of as much as 60 meters and temperature ranges between –40 levels and 50 levels Celsius. Briefly, it labored.
The Seamaster’s Technological Improvements
That every one mentioned, with due respect to Bond’s unique selection of wristwear, the Rolex Submariner was fast to blow Omega fully out of the water as quickly as 1953. The immortal, legendary and quite-simply peerless diving watch had the entire package deal from the outset: screw-down crown, unidirectional rotating dive-time bezel, 300-metre water resistance… Bar the fashionable Tudor Pelagos and the Sub’s early rival, Blancpain’s Fifty Fathoms, there was and can be little contest. Certain sufficient, the souped-up Rolex ‘Mil-Sub’ acquired in early as first selection for the British Navy’s crack frogmen through the fifties and seventies.
By 1957, nonetheless, Omega acquired again within the recreation with not one however three new ‘Master’ watches, match for land, sea and air. Alongside the Speedmaster (the one watch that’s been on the Moon) and the Railmaster was an overdue, totally completed thinking-man’s different to the Sub’: the Seamaster 300, full with all of the above and still-standard diving-watch requisites. A broad-arrow hours hand was neatly counterbalanced by its luminous arrow-shaped hour indexes. The next yr, impressed by the historic markings on gondolas in Venice, the Seahorse turned the image of the Seamaster, engraved on its caseback and nonetheless featured right this moment on a choice of ‘Professional’ fashions.
The Omega Seamaster 300 At this time
It’s now been 25 years because the blue-bezelled iteration everyone knows finest was launched – the one which Lindy Hemming matched so completely to Brosnan’s excellent nineties Bond. Since 1993, the Seamaster Skilled Diver 300M has develop into a lot of an embedded, fashionable basic that one specific instance is to be seen completely peeping from the wrist of a sure Duke of Cambridge every so often. Wills even wore it to his brother’s marriage ceremony – which is arguably a little bit of a sartorial no-no, however who’re we to argue with His Royal Highness? Let’s not overlook his personal naval expertise, in spite of everything.
Cherished for its vibrant design and oceangoing know-how, the unique 300M Skilled signalled Omega’s triumphant return to the world of diving watches after a dry-docked eighties and singlehandedly ignited the continued partnership with Her Majesty’s Secret Service. In fact, there have been many variations on the Seamaster over time, with the Aqua Terra and Planet Ocean ranges being specific highlights – the latter of which turns issues up 300 extra notches, to 600 metres’ water resistance – however the Skilled stays the flagship.
The Latest Seamaster 300M Skilled
For 2018 Omega celebrates 25 years since its fashionable reboot, introducing a daring new Skilled Diver 300M assortment with a complete facelift numbering 14 totally different fashions, together with six in stainless-steel and eight in a mix of stainless-steel and gold (the bi-metal watch development is again, for those who hadn’t seen, eighties followers).
Now sized up from 41mm to a barely extra up to date 42 mm, conserving the skeletonised palms and wavy dial sample so fashionable within the 1993 unique, the true Bond-worthy gadgetry is whirring away inside. And it’s all right down to innovation that’ll shield the fragile mechanics from the form of ultra-magnetism knocking about your common Bond villain’s lair.
The Motion
The in-house-manufactured Grasp Chronometer Calibre 8800 motion immediately accelerates issues into unprecedented realms of precision, efficiency and magnetic resistance. Seamaster devotees will know that the vary has been host to a number of actions over time, together with the ETA-based Omega Caliber 1120 and, most just lately, the 2500, which is actually based mostly on the identical unique motion although significantly modified by Omega to incorporate its lubricant-free Co-Axial escapement.
With the brand new Seamaster 300M using the Grasp Chronometer 8800, Omega is continuous its brand-wide programme phasing-out older actions in favour of its extra cutting-edge in-house {hardware}, repositioning itself as a real, evenly geared up rival to Rolex, because it as soon as was again within the day.
So what’s so cutting-edge concerning the 8800? Properly, with the standard mechanical watch, magnetic fields are nonetheless Public Enemy No. 1 to the ferrous elements ticking inside, sticking them collectively or sending them out of whack. In keeping with worldwide normal ISO 764, watches should resist exposition to a direct present magnetic discipline of 4,800 Amperes per metre – concerning the power of the magnet in your fridge door.
The equal to 4,800 A/m is about 60 Gauss, which makes Omega’s ticking cocktail of intelligent alloys and silicon terribly overqualified: its new certification by the Swiss metrology institute, METAS calls for a resistance up from 60 to fifteen,000 (sure, 15,000) Gauss – sufficient to withstand the affect of a neodymium magnet, the strongest everlasting magnet commercially accessible, discovered all over the place from laborious disks to MRI scanners. And laser-beam torture gadgets, presumably.
Dive in, chaps. The Seamaster has by no means felt finer.
At this time’s Greatest Omega Seamaster 300 Fashions
Mannequin Quantity: 212.30.41.20.03.001
As masculine as you’d anticipate from James Bond’s watch of selection, this does what few diving watches can handle in that it features as a correct high-spec device watch, whereas additionally being (simply) sensible sufficient for extra dressed-up events. (Although not with the tuxedo. Actually, 007.)
Mannequin Quantity: 233.30.41.21.01.001
Launched in 2017, this sixtieth anniversary piece pays very respectful tribute to a fifties mannequin, however below the floor is all of the technical diving tech that Omega has honed within the many years since. A licensed chronometer with a screw-in crown, that is kind and performance in near-perfect concord.
Mannequin Quantity: 233.92.41.21.03.001
This model, on a leather-based strap, is one other vintage-looking Seamaster, the sand-blasted blue dial deep sufficient to need to dive proper in. As with the opposite fashions within the household, it has a ceramic rotating bezel to assist monitor your time underwater.
Mannequin Quantity: 233.20.41.21.01.001
Bimetal watches are one thing of a Marmite fashion however they’re undoubtedly trending. Right here, the good-looking rose gold brings the sober stainless-steel to life, whereas below all of the glitz and glamour sits the identical hard-working motion as you’ll discover throughout the Seamaster vary.
