Omega and Swatch just collaborated on the most accessible Speedmaster ever

It’s safe to say that collaborations are a surefire way to turn heads. When Kim Jones was at Louis Vuitton and announced a special collab with skate-brand Supreme, the hype world lost its collective mind. More recently, when the creative minds at say Gucci and North Face combined forces, the hysteria still amasses special attention. Another case in point, Mercedes x Palace dropped something together earlier this week and it hits the spot immediately – it’s the lure of the unexpected that gets us.

In the watch world, collabs are nothing new either. In the past 12 months, some garnered ridiculous amounts of today’s favoured currency to trade in – hype (Patek Philippe x Tiffany’s), while others pitted two attractive target audiences together and made some rather sensical end products together (TAG Heuer x Porsche, Breitling x Triumph, Girard Perregaux x Aston Martin). They all act as one of two things: either an extension of something you already have (an Aston Martin), or an entry point to something you aspire to have (a Porsche) but can’t afford. Some collaborations get labelled as gimmicky, some just quietly go about their way and work.

This Omega and Swatch joint mission takes the art of collaboration to the next level though. The journey started nine months ago in a meeting room in Biel with Omega CEO Raynald Aeschlimann, Swatch creative director Carlo Giordanetti and Omega head of product design Gregory Kissling and Hayek all tasked with coming up with a collaboration that will hit the spot. And the Speedmaster MoonSwatch collection is what they decided on, as the CEO of Swatch Group Nick Hayek tells GQ. 

“Collabs are very fashionable, between Gucci, Balenciaga, whoever is working together. But often it's just a marketing gig where you put the logos from one to the product of the other one and that's it. Here we wanted to go a step further, because we have an iconic brand like Omega, that has a product that is an icon in the Swiss watch industry, the Speedmaster. And on the other side, Swatch is an icon because it has saved the Swiss watch industry. When everybody was only focusing on luxury, Swatch was there, and Swatch is an innovator,” says Hayek. It was his late father who was responsible for saving the Swiss watch industry and today, with this collaboration, Hayek Jr may well be the man responsible for evolving it and shaping the future.