A TRIP THROUGH TIME
AT THE OMEGA MUSEUM IN SWITZERLAND, VISITORS LEARN 170 YEARS OF WORLD HISTORY THROUGH COLLECTIONS OF THE SWISS TIMEPIECE
Many who have never visited the Omega Museum may wonder who would visit such a place dedicated to one specific watch brand.
Once there, your perception changes completely. Whether you’re an Omega wearer or not, touring the museum is like stepping into a time machine that transports you to the 1800s, when precise watch movements didn’t even exist.
The Omega Museum is located just opposite Omega’s headquarters in Bienne, Switzerland — the metropolitan centre of Swiss watchmaking. At first glance, the museum is but a two-storey tranquil building with a very ordinary exterior. Inside, the displays are plain, too, but impressively full of detail and interesting historical data that traces back to when and how Omega first came about. The museum claims the displays are updated regularly.
Opened in December 1983, the Omega Museum is the oldest museum dedicated to a single watch brand. It houses over 4,000 watches as well as other significant watch-movement innovations, tools, photos, engravings, posters, signs, awards and certificates. Some of the more significant timepieces are those which have travelled to the Moon and back with Apollo astronauts as well as watches worn by kings, queens, presidents, explorers and those appearing in famous films like Quantum Of
Solace and Dunkirk.
The Omega story begins 170 years ago, when a 23-year-old Swiss watchmaker named Louis Brandt founded his workshop in a Swiss city called La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1848 to produce watches to sell all over Europe. In 1877, Brandt formed a partnership with his second son, Louis-Paul Brandt.
Later, the son wanted to expand the business and sell watches to customers all over the world, but in terms of marketing he realised he could not sell the same products across the globe. So they decided to invent sister brands. Each brand’s price and quality were adapted to each and every single market they wanted to attract. Although such an initiative sounds very much like marketing 101 in modern times, this concept was deemed quite visionary in 1885.
So at the museum, one highlighted display is of the very desk and workbench used by Louis Brandt to produce his watches.
The company was later named Louis Brandt & Frere, and would go on to release a revolutionary innovation in 1894: the 19-line Omega calibre — the same calibre used in 43.2 mass-produced pocket watches until 1931. The Omega calibre became so successful that the company adopted the name Omega.
One display worth taking note of is the watch designed for ladies back in the old days. For women, reading the time on their wristwatch
in front of others was considered impolite. So Omega designed wristwatches to be more like bangles, so when people looked at them, they saw accessories where in fact ladies could discreetly check the time.
The history of Omega is closely associated with the world wars. Interestingly, on the allied side, many of the soldiers relied on their Omega watches as instruments for survival. At the time, the brand was one of the biggest suppliers of watches during both wars, and is still recognised today for the critical role it played.
During World War I, Omega was a supplier of military watches. The company’s reputation continued to World War II, when the brand delivered timepieces to the pilots, navigators and soldiers of Great Britain to support its air force and navy pilots during service.
Besides its association with warfare, Omega has played an extremely crucial role in sport, especially in major events like the Olympics, where the difference between first and second place comes down to a fraction of a second. Having been globally recognised as the official timekeeper of the Olympics since 1932, the brand has earned trust as the watchmaking company that developed one of the world’s most advanced timekeeping technologies, such as the start-and-finish detection mechanism installed on the wall in each swimmer’s lane in Olympic swimming pools (also displayed in the museum).
In one large corner of the museum lies an eye-popping display of a life-size astronaut figurine wearing an Omega watch to the Moon. This part of the exhibition highlights the brand’s 45-plus-year involvement with Nasa’s manned space programme, where Omega Speedmasters were worn on all six lunar landings.
Also, there’s a display of James Bond’s watch, the Omega Seamaster, which has appeared in 007 films since 1995. Other noteworthy timepieces on view that have long been favourites include the wristwatch worn by 35th President of the United States John F. Kennedy at his inauguration ceremony.
Towards the end of the exhibition is a section dedicated to celebrating the world’s first wristwatch resistant to magnetic fields greater than 1.5 tesla (15,000 gauss). In 2013, Omega succeeded in inventing a technology that exceeds the levels of magnetic resistance achieved by any previous watch, and subsequently solved a problem that had challenged watchmakers for centuries.
Eventually, Omega was able to industrialise such magnetic-resistant technology, introducing the Seamaster Aqua Terra >15,000 Guass as a model within the brand collection during BaselWorld, and into the market in 2013.
The Omega Museum is open Tues-Sat. Entrance is free.
There is an eye-popping display of a life-size astronaut figurine wearing an Omega watch to the Moon