Omega has announced a new watch to celebrate 60 years of James Bond.
Double-O-7’s Diamond Anniversary celebrations have already been marked by a Royal Albert Hall concert, the unveiling of a purpose-built 18,000 square-foot ‘Sean Connery Stage’ at Pinewood Studios and a two-part charity auction at Christie’s that included a replica Aston Marin DB5, Q’s The World Is Not Enough jet boat and Spectre Agent Primo’s bionic eyeball from No Time To Die.
Omega James Bond 60th Anniversary Seamaster Diver 300m Co-Axial Master Chronometer 42mm
Omega James Bond 60th Anniversary Seamaster Diver 300m Co-Axial Master Chronometer 42mm
The auctions also included several of Commander Bond’s trademark Omega Seamaster watches, including the actual Seamaster Diver 300m 007 Edition. Made of lightweight titanium with “tropical brown” details, and worn by Daniel Craig during his final outing as Bond in last year’s No Time To Die, the watch marked 25 years of the Swiss watchmakers’ enduring partnership with the franchise. That alone fetched £226, 800.
Now Omega has revealed its anniversary watch, the Seamaster Diver 300M 60 Years Of James Bond Stainless Steel.
The new model takes design inspiration from Craig’s No Time To Die watch and marries it with look of the very first Bond Omega, a blue Seamaster 300M Quartz worn by Pierce Brosnan in 1995’s GoldenEye.
The bezel and dial are both made from blue anodized aluminium, the dial features laser-engraved waves, and the bezel’s diving scale has been redesigned so the traditional inverted triangle indicator has been replaced with the number “60”.
The showstopping moment is saved for the caseback. This replicates the 007 opening title sequence, with Bond in silhouette and a spinning gun barrel design. The mesmerising effect, achieved by laser-engraving a single disk, is achieved by linking the caseback disc to the watch’s second hand – featuring a lollipop motif on a Diver 300m for the first time, and varnished in white. The second hand drives the animation, a style known as “moiré”. So, in the words of Omega, “the action never stops”.
Although the Bond of Ian Fleming’s novels was a Rolex Explorer man, the screen character, played by seven actors over six decades, one of the most loved and profitable franchises in the entertainment history, has worn a variety of brands.
From a Gruen Precision 510, the first Bond watch seen on screen, a 34mm gold number strapped to Sean Connery at the gaming tables in 1962’s Dr No to a chunky Breitling Geiger counter that detects radiation from two stolen atomic bombs in 1965’s Thunderball to Roger Moore’s Seiko Liquid Crystal TV watch, used only once in 1983’s Octopussy to zoom in on an unidentified woman’s cleavage, a history explored by Esquire in this definitive guide, it’s his long-standing relationship with Omega that has cemented Bond’s preferred watch of choice.
Bond has worn Seamasters in every film for since 1995.
That initial decision to switch brands was thanks to the Oscar-winning costume designer Lindy Hemming, who chose Omega for Pierce Brosnan’s debut in GoldenEye.
“When Peirce took over, my whole idea was that we were Europeans and that Bond was a European,” she told the New York Times in February 2020, while acknowledging the irony of Britain’s departure from the European Union the preceding month. “I did it on purpose. I wanted to extend who he was.”
The Seamaster 300M Quartz’s blue-wave dial was also a factor in her decision, she said, remembering friends of her father, who were former Navy men and wore Omegas.
“They were gentlemen, good guys, ready for anything,” she said. “Omega was perfect for a naval commander who dived and rescued people.”
Omega has produced many limited and non-limited-edition watches to honour Bond and the franchise over the last quarter-century. It is one of the great partnerships in the watch world.
But 2001’s Seamaster Diver 300M 007 Edition, which Daniel Craig is said to have had a hand in designing, was a particular runaway success. The model was singled out by Watches of Switzerland, the third-party retail group that includes Mappin & Webb and Goldsmiths, in helping it reach record profits of £586.2m last year, an increase of 44.6 per cent on 202o.
If anything, this sunning new 60th Anniversary model is like to prove an even bigger draw, it’s highly original caseback seemingly designed to be catnip for Bond fans.
The model is also produced in a titanium and a version in Omega’s own 18K “Campus Gold”.
At the very least, as the world awaits news of who will actually be the next James Bond, it will provide an entertaining way to pass the time.
There was a sufficiently lavish launch event for the watch, too. Held in the railway arches of London Bridge on Wednesday, former Bond Daniel Craig turned up – looking like the secret agent himself in a tuxedo and accompanying Seamaster – alongside other stars, all potentially angling for their chance to take on the role of 007 themselves with a mix of evening-wear. You can read all about it here.
£7,100 (steel version); omegawatches.com
