Developing a brand-new watch from the ground up is a painstaking, expensive process with a multiyear production cycle. These challenging conditions are why many new releases are simple forms of habillage, or “dressing up” an old watch in new colors. But new releases from brands like Omega make it hard to knock this game of horological dress-up. Just look at the white lacquer-dial Speedmaster, which came out earlier this year and reinvigorated interest in an already classic model. Now, Omega is reinvigorating another tentpole by issuing a new Seamaster Aqua Terra 150M Ultra Light.
Omega made use of its status as a sponsor of the Olympics, and many of the participating athletes, to launch the watch. The new Seamaster debuted on Swedish American pole vaulter Armand “Mondo” Duplantis’s wrist as he broke the world record with a 6.25-meter vault, as first spotted by Hodinkee’s ludicrously tall and talented photographer. After the vault, the watch appeared live on Omega’s website completely unannounced. Using premiere athletes to show off new watches is an excellent trick in the watch industry that introduces not only a great new design but a watch’s true purpose. A few years ago, Rolex teased its titanium Yacht-Master on the wrist of Sir Ben Ainslie before eventually releasing it to the public. Just like Ainslie needed a titanium watch to shave seconds off his sailing times, Mondo’s new Omega is light enough to not affect the height on vaults where every millimeter counts.
Tim Clayton – Corbis/Getty Images
Omega
If you’re not familiar with Duplantis, the 24-year-old Omega ambassador broke the world record for the eighth time in his career back on April 20 with a 6.24-meter vault, which he beat this week. In June, Omega launched a special version of its steel Seamaster Aqua Terra in his honor with a blue dial and yellow accents—referencing the colors of the Swedish flag. But a new record was evidently deserving enough of a new watch, and Omega ported the Swedish livery over to its titanium “Ultra Light” watch. Measuring 41-mm wide, the Seamaster’s lightweight housing features a silicon nitride bezel ring as well as a captive, recessed crown. The blue anodized dial, also machined from titanium, is engraved with a horizontal stripe pattern and given applied, blackened indices. Omega, always one to have a good time with hands, fashioned the watch’s bright-yellow central seconds hand after a vaulter’s pole.
The new Aqua Terra is an ideal sport watch in every way. Everything is designed with lightness in mind: the blue-and-yellow nylon strap and titanium case. The Omega Co-Axial Master Chronometer Calibre 8928 Ti is also fashioned from superlight titanium, and unlike the power plants in most Aqua Terra models, it’s manually wound. Boasting 72 hours of power reserve via dual barrels, it features a special jump-hour function, which allows the wearer to quickly change time zones forward or backward. So while the manual winding is perhaps a knock against the Seamaster Aqua Terra 150M Ultra Light’s sport watch bona fides, the extreme light weight (55 grams), METAS certification, and travel complication more than make up for it.
Unlimited in production, this handsome new Aqua Terra will set you back an eye-watering $51,300. But hey, if you’re gonna drop 51 Gs on a watch, you could do much worse than a futuristic titanium one in dope colors with a wildly cool-looking movement. Bonus points if you wear it while taking home a world record in pole vaulting, of course.
