If you are the proud owner of an Omega Speedmaster, then that pride might have been dented over Christmas if – as happened to a friend of mine – a young cousin wearing a hat by some inscrutable streetwear brand quizzed you on a) which MoonSwatch variant is that and b) did you put the metal strap on yourself?
Galling, no?
This is the watch that went to the moon! Well, not this one. But one like it! It's premium Swiss engineering! To be passed between generations! Not some fad with a shelf-life dictated by its StockX price!
Yes, it's snobbery, but it's hard-earned snobbery.
Despite the name of the parent company and the Swatch-boutique-only availability – where an estimated two million of the things have been sold – Swatch is the little brother in this partnership.
By some estimates, Omega counts for some 60 per cent of the Swatch Group's revenue. The 120-year-old brand is reliably either two or three in the Swiss marque rankings, by revenue and volume, depending on how popular the Cartier Tank was in the previous 12 months.
Though a workhorse brand for most of the 20th century, Omega has been tacking steadily upmarket since the millennium. Partnerships with Bond and the Olympics, which have amplified technical innovations like bespoke gold alloys and its co-axial escapement, have enabled it to tilt at Rolex's market share (double that of Omega and Cartier combined).
But does it wipe out 25 years of horological innovation if your cousin thinks you're wearing something battery-powered that retails for less than a pair of AF1s?
At launch, no.
Omega's sales jumped almost as fast as Swatch's when the MoonSwatch first landed.
“Omega store staff reported customers enquiring about MoonSwatches and leaving with a Speedmaster, as well as upgrading their MoonSwatches to a Speedmaster," says Andrew Morgan, in-house watch expert at Watchfinder & Co.
But how does it affect the OG Moonwatch – yours from £5,000 and up-up-up – when there's a pocket-change version knocking about indefinitely?
Omega 2021 Speedmaster Moonwatch Professional Co-Axial Master Chronometer 42mm Mens
Omega 2021 Speedmaster Moonwatch Professional Co-Axial Master Chronometer 42mm Mens
"Whether, ongoing, future customers will still use it as an entry point to what they really want, or whether it keeps encouraging owners to upgrade to the Speedmaster, remains to be seen," says Morgan.
Which leaves both Swatch and Omega in something of a bind.
From launch, Swatch has been clear that the MoonSwatch isn't limited. They'll make as many as people can buy, which at first was a lot, but now, is less. The Day One queues and muggings are long gone.
I walked into the empty Battersea boutique in the week before Christmas and could have had my pick of any model bar the Mission to the Moon proper, or its geographically limited editions. But they're easy to pick up on resale, for less frothy numbers than they were changing wrists a year ago.
This is predictable, but also puzzling. The collab helped Swatch to a market-beating 2022, with Swatch up 87 per cent, which offset the group's declining sales in the far east. But the pips are starting to squeak.
Is anyone clamouring for the *checks notes* MoonSwatch Gold Snowflake, which dropped to little fanfare in 88 cities just after Christmas? Can Swatch afford to stop the collaboration here? Can it afford to keep them coming? You don't have to disembowel a golden goose in half to kill it; force-feeding works just as well.
And for all that bottom-line-swelling foie gras, the suits at Swatch might be starting to feel like they've overindulged too.
Which begs the question: what next for the MoonSwatch?
"One key value of Swatch is that there isn’t any permanent collection," says Oliver R Müller, a Swiss watch industry consultant. “Similar to fashion, twice a year a new collection is presented around a theme of colours or topics. Therefore, the MoonSwatch is already not typical of Swatch’s product life-cycles."
For Müller, there's nothing left here. In fact, he believes Swatch should have limited numbers – and shelf-life – from the outset to maintain exclusivity.
Instead, they've mortgaged long-term value for one strong set of annual numbers, and sucked the heat out of potential projects.
"The demand was a multiple of what could have been reasonably expected, which is a nice problem to manage, but at some point you have to evaluate if the short-term benefits are more important than the long-term potential negative impact, such as people seeing Swatch as the one-trick pony or damaging the long-term brand equity of Omega," Muller says.
“The success of the collaboration with Blancpain is already a lot less impressive than the one with Omega. You can’t just repeat the same success story ad vitam aeternam with the same ingredients."
And yet, that looks like Swatch Group's plan. A new Blancpain collab has been teased – the Ocean of Storms – but its predecessor didn't set the world alight. After that, there are three options, says Morgan (other than than giving up collabs entirely, which seems unlikely):
1) Go back to the Omega well, most likely the Seamaster, with all the risk-and-reward of the Speedmaster doubled.
2) Tap another brand in its stable, most likely Breguet. "Hamilton, Tissot etc are unlikely," says Morgan, "since the price points are already much closer to Swatch’s. Breguet aligns better with the thinking around Blancpain."
3) Go beyond HQ. "The least likely option is to collaborate with brands outside the Swatch Group," says Morgan. "It’s understood that prototypes exist on this theme, but no agreement is known." (Indeed, Swatch’s CEO Nick Heyek Jr. reportedly showed insiders mock-ups of potential non-Swatch Group collaborations when the first MoonSwatch launched in March 2022.)
Then again, Geneva is an inscrutable place and Swatch has form when it comes to seemingly irrational moves that drag the entire industry along behind.
Perhaps by 2030 the Swatch x Royal Oak, Swatch x Nautilus and Swatch x Reverso will be how every Gen Z is bitten by the watch bug.
