OMEGA is a mainstay for fine, elegant and technically advanced ladies’ watches. That could be said for quite a number of watch brands, but during a recent evening with Petros Protopapas, Brand Heritage Manager at OMEGA, I got the chance to delve deeper into the brand’s history of outstanding timepieces for the female clientele.



An evening with Mr Protopapas is a sure delight for any watch enthusiast, whether an OMEGA collector or not. And this fine evening dinner, held at the OMEGA Boutique in Vienna, did not disappoint.





Mr Protopapas highlighted two important facts: (i) OMEGA appreciated the relevance of watches for ladies that are worn on the wrist early and earnestly, and (ii), the company fully embraced ladies watches not only as jewellery, but importantly also as technical objects with a performance imperative.


(From right: Petros Protopapas, OMEGA Brand Heritage Manager; Maria Fojtl, Brand Manager OMEGA Austria; Isabelle Maria Zingg; Yours Truly)



This does not mean that fantastic jewellery watches were forgotten at OMEGA.


(i) The Early Days: Pocket Watch Heritage Transpires
The first watch worth noting is this very early OMEGA ladies’ wristwatch made in either 1899 or 1900. It clearly shows resemblance to its pocket watch siblings, and looks quite close to what is commonly referred to as conversions: wristwatches that started their lives as pocket watches, but were later converted to accommodate straps or bracelets. This one, however, left the ateliers in Biel right away as wristwatch as could be documented by the comprehensive archival files at the OMEGA museum:







The case is made in Sterling silver, with an enamel dial plus heat-blued hands that resemble the military-issued pocket watches typical for the time. The lugs are solidly soldered on the case.





This specific construction was commonly used some 100 years ago, as the following OMEGA advertisements as well as catalogue scans prove (first, 1908, second, 1914):





The notion that it were the Polo players or military who pushed also gentlemen to adopt the folly-female fashion of wearing a timepiece on the wrist is widely told, but I am sure it was the ladies themselves who were at a distinct practical advantage when it came to telling the time: instead of the wearisome act of producing the watch from ones pockets each time one (needs or wants) to read the time, the girls could simply flick their wrists and were done. Clearly, the practical gentleman would have been eager to adopt such an advantageous gadget as well!

And so the story went…


(ii) Emancipating women - the technological way!
A few decades later, technological progress, higher educational levels combined with a slowly empowering female population saw women increasingly seeking for active self-determination, and this went along with more and more women entering the workforce.

OMEGA recognised this trend early on and served the female clientele with stylish, yet at the same time robust and extremely precise timepieces, and also advertised them as such (advertisement from 1928):



The image above is remarkable if you look closely: it is the lady who is active, not the gentleman. What could better reflect the force with which women have fought to live their lives on their own account? OMEGA’s commitment for trendy ladies’ wristwatches paid off: between 1894 and 1935, these watches accounted for more than 35% of OMEGA’s output.

A fine example is the so-called OMEGA Medicus, presented in 1937, which specifically targeted women in medical positions, such as nurses and doctors.



With its central seconds hand, btw., the first such in an OMEGA wristwatch!, it well served the need for timing pulsation or respiration.



It is, if you like, one of the first ever tool watches specifically created for women.



Above all, the lug system was patented by OMEGA, and showed in several contemporary ads.






(iii) The Turn of the Tides
After the global catastrophe of the Second World War, women generally had to sustain a setback in their societal positions: back into the kitchen and to caring for the children, out of the professional life, with the ‘iconic’ (read: stereotypical) contemporary advertisements we all know too well.

OMEGA was a little bit different at that time as well, continuing to present women as active masters of their lives, with their own distinctive elegance and style (here: 1946, 1947 and 1959, respectively), stressing the fact that their jewellery pieces are created to the same exacting performance thresholds as the chronometer-quality men’s pieces (that was an exaggeration, for sure):








The practical results were jewellery watches, at times with a hidden time display, which were up there with the very best gem setting available:



First, a diamond-studded white gold watch with a secret watch dial:













This watch gained some fame recently as Nicole Kidman, long term OMEGA ambassador, chose this piece of some of her red carpet appearances, e.g. at the Oscars award ceremony 2017 (Ms Kidman is indeed a watch lover and very carefully selects the watches she intends to wear quite carefully herself):



Second, a red gold piece with integrated, flexible „Tubogas“ bracelet, created by the famous artist and fashion illustrator René Gruau and made between 1944 and 1947:











Tubogas translates literally to "gas pipe" and is the descriptive name given to a type of chain formed from a pair of interlocking gold strips wrapped tightly together. This forms a flexible and hollow tubular necklace that requires no soldering.




 

(iv) Return to Technical Innovation and Excellence: The Automatic Ladymatic - with Chronometric Certification!
Fast forward a decade, and an immense technical leap as well: In 1955, OMEGA presented the smallest automatic movement with Chronometer certification by the Official Chronometer Testing Bureau (the forerunner of COSC), and wrapped it into a fascinatingly fine ladies’s watch, the Ladymatic:















This was a piece which was driven by the OMEGA Cal. 455, a legendary movement developed just two years earlier and was considered the smallest rotor-equipped movement in the world (precisely: the automatic movement with worldwide the smallest volume): with a diameter of just 16.0mm and a height of 5.6mm (well, quite substantial compared to the diameter...), it had 17 jewels and a beat of 19800 A/h. Also, its power reserve was remarkable: a quite modern 42h!



It was thus described as 'being as fabulous as the men's watches' - a clear techncial trigger for the gentleman to buy his girl an 'adequate' watch... (ad from 1955):



The Ladymatic was also found on fantastic gem watches:




(v) Stronger than Ever: OMEGA’S Ladies’ Watch Today:
The tradition to deliver outstandingly attractive and technologically advanced female pieces has continued at OMEGA until today. The technological backbone of all (mechanical) watches is nothing short of unique in the watchword, with a COSC- as well as METAS-approved Master Chronometer Certification implemented across the entire offerings - quite a logistic feat (read here! ). All pieces thus have state-of-the-art movements with coaxial escapements driven by in-house silicon balance springs (silicon is amagnetic) and further amagnetic alloys for other critical components such as the lever, escape wheel, balance, and balance screws.

Clearly, the star is still the Ladymatic, an eminently playfully elegant, distinctly female watch:





An almost traditional watch is the Constellation, which now is also offered in what represents the smallest METAS-certified Master Chronometer movement, the Cal. 8520.







Finally, we have ladies’ versions of the ‘somewhere-in-the-shadows’ Trésor collection, an elegant, clearly unisex watch that is probably the technically most exotic of the Master Chronometers: it is hand wound!





What a truly amazing history, and what a refershingly modern approach to ladies watches even one century ago. Thank you very much, OMEGA, for organising this suprb event, and particularly to Petros Protopapas for his immensly educative, knowledgeable and vivid presentation!

Best,
Magnus