Watches Tell More Than Time

Actress Ash Rai, Longines's global ambassador. Courtesy of Longines

They shimmer. They sparkle. They take a bold stance. They also show the passing of hours and minutes in a most dependable way.

These top-line watches offer both elegance and dependability—they aren’t just show pieces that don’t keep good time. The workings inside are of the same high quality as the outer cases and dials. These are fancy ornaments and serious chronographs.

A commemorative piece from 2009 marking the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, the OMEGA line’s Speedmaster looked back at its trip to the moon in 1969. In 2010, the company celebrated the 35th anniversary of the joint U.S.-Soviet mission—the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, with its first-ever cooperation between the two former rivals.

OMEGA made a limited edition of 1,975 of these watches, the dials of which are made of pieces cut from a meteorite that landed on Earth. According to a press release, OMEGA’s relationship with NASA continues today, and Speedmasters are still standard equipment for the astronauts on the International Space Station.

OMEGA not only makes watches that survive the rigors of space travel but also watches that can survive the pressures of deep-sea diving. Last year, the company updated the 1970s design of the Seamaster Professional 600, called “Ploprof” (the first letters of plongeur professionnel—the French words for “professional diver”). The new model is the Ploprof1200M, a watch that is dependable up to depths of 1,200 meters (4,000 feet, 120 bar). Now, in 2010, they offer the Seamaster in a white version.

For land and sea, OMEGA offers the Seamaster Aqua Terra line with a teak design reminiscent, according to the company’s literature, of the teak decking of luxury boats. The watch interior is also impressive with a high-precision COSC-certified chronometer. (Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres, the Official Swiss Chronometer Testing Institute, which is the institute responsible for certifying the accuracy and precision of wristwatches in Switzerland, according to worldtempus.com.)

These are all rugged, masculine watches, but OMEGA doesn’t leave out women. They have created Speedmaster Ladies’ Chronograph Chronometers in white, black and gray, purple, 18-carat pink gold, and many are decorated with diamonds.

Also offering watches with a lunar theme in this high-end field is Longines, a maker of watches for over 175 years. Longines presents a woman’s model called Prima Luna, in honor of the magical time-marking traits of the moon.

This watch, according to the press release, is credited with being a piece of jewelry as well as a timepiece. It comes in stainless steel, rose or yellow gold, or a combination of steel and rose gold, with some models using mother of pearl for the dial. Women will appreciate that these watches are made in four sizes.

For those who like their feet on the ground instead of in water or space, there are top-of-the-line watches for men from Tonino Lamborghini, with its signature bull logo.

The company offers styles in either the round-faced, traditional watch or the modern triangular-faced designs with three subdials. They come in color choices of black and red, black and gold-plated, black and silver, and tri-color red, black and silver. The watches have Swiss movements.

With the right creativity, a simple object with a single purpose can expand its realm and become an elegant decoration, or it can mark history, withstand exploration of other worlds, and bring a thrill to your wrist.