Last year, after spark the biggest hype the watch market has seen with the release MoonSwatch, a bioplastic Swatch version of Omega’s legendary Speedmaster Moonwatch, president Nick Hayek Jr. of Swatch says that “positive provocation” is an important part of the brand’s mission. This perhaps explains the first sequel to the original 11-piece MoonSwatches collection, announced today but launched before (as well as the initial release) with its cryptic social media message. festival.
Over the weekend, the Swatch Instagram account announced the imminent arrival of Mission to Moonshine Gold.” Each MoonSwatch is named after a different planet, with the prefix “Mission to…” (Mission to Mars, Mission to Neptune, etc.), while golden moonlight is Omega’s proprietary hard gold alloy, used in a number of seeincluding some sought-after pure gold Speed model.
That provoked a rage of speculation about the upcoming gold-inspired — or indeed all-gold — MoonSwatch. This morning, the answer arrived: an identical version of the gray Mission to the Moon model (which most closely resembles the classic Speedmaster), but the chronograph seconds hand alone is coated in Moonshine gold (with a retail price of Rs. £250 ($298) ), compared to £228 ($272) for the regular version).
Hayek’s willingness to confound drinkers in the hype his own brand generates doesn’t end with an obviously over-the-top release (if the Instagram comments are anything). happen). The main feature of the MoonSwatch story, which since its launch saw Swatch stores around the world flooded by countless buyers and flippers, is scarcity, with Swatch stores on offer. under massively and the meter is not available online.
Now, this has subsided a lot: Swatch reported expected sales of 1.5 million MoonSwatch units in the year since launch, while resale prices plummeted. On the Chrono24 watch market, Mission to the Moon is currently listed at around £350 ($417), a high return on a £228 product ($272) over any time period, but down from over £ 800 ($953) last spring.
Perhaps the real mission of Mission to Moonshine is to bring up the problem of scarcity again. It’s only available today and only in four locations worldwide: in Tokyo, where it goes on sale at 9:30 JST, and in Milan, Zurich, and London—not the US. Swatch says all locations have a thematic link to gold: The City of London (where watches go on sale at 6:30pm in a pop-up at the Royal Exchange, the trading hub) financial history) is where gold valuations are set, for example, while Zurich’s Paradeplatz is the central hub of the city’s banking district.
