When it comes to brand building, I would always advise those starting out to make sure their core collection is tight. It should give newcomers an immediate sense of the brand’s specialities and focus, and give returning customers context for their previous purchases and what they might wish to buy next to further their connection to the brand.
When it comes to legacy brands’ organisation of their catalogues, however, the rules go out the window. I frequently stumble across bloated lineups from brands that, in my humble opinion, should know better. Sure, it’s great to throw out a lot of ideas to see what resonates with your existing community or sweeps up the jaded would-be customers of rival brands looking for the next big thing, but if you’re going to do that, at least have the courtesy to clean up after yourself once the experiment has run its course. A refusal to do this can land you with a gargantuan collection that seems, from the outside at least, to serve everybody and nobody at once.
Focussing on only the more iconic pieces that typify the brand and make it stand out from the crowd, below are my top five Omega Watches available in 2024.
Omega Speedmaster Professional
This barely needs saying, but the Speedmaster is as true an icon as you’re able to find in the watchmaking universe. Yes, it can rankle some that Omega has continually dined out on the fact an earlier iteration of this series was the first watch to be worn on the surface of the moon, but, come on — when it comes to stories, it doesn’t get much better than that.
More importantly, the Speedmaster was, and remains, a beautiful chronograph. Its layout and legibility have often been mimicked but never really topped. So ardent are collectors of Speedies, that a whole community dedicated to their celebration exists. If you want your watch to make you a lot of friends quickly, this might be the way to go.
Omega Constellation
This may seem a bit of a curveball selection, but the Constellation collection doesn’t get enough love in the West. It went through a phase in the early aughts and 2010s of feeling a bit passé, but the nineties yearning one would expect to experience in the ‘20s (given the 30-year lag associated with the phenomenon of cultural nostalgia) is in full flow and, suddenly, the Constellation is back on the map as a serious alternative to the Rolex DateJust and its swollen price tag. This 36mm stainless steel model (131.10.36.60.01.001) features a bezel engraved with Roman numerals, a sun-brushed black dial and a date window at the 6 o'clock position.
Omega Constellation Globemaster
There are some, including this author, who believe the Globemaster is such an exceptional watch, that it should have its own model line entirely. It doesn’t. It’s part of the Constellation family. However, that doesn’t diminish its appeal at all (it just makes this unexpectedly satisfying design hard to find in the catalogue). The Globemaster, with its pie-pan dial and predilection for precious metals, is a low-key stunner and definitely worth trying on if you’ve never had one on your wrist before. This model (ref. 130.30.39.21.03.001) features a stainless steel case features a hard metal scratchproof fluted bezel, with a rhodium-plated Constellation star, and hands and indexes which have also been filled with illuminous Super-LumiNova.
Omega PloProf
The PloProf is a certified odd duck. It looks like nothing and, for many years, was barely wearable (unless you happened to have an adamantium skeleton like Wolverine). Although that now-discontinued steel version was my personal favourite, the Titanium models are far more comfortable on the wrist and also sport open case-backs, revealing one of Omega’s fine in-house calibres. Better still, however, is the reshaped, slightly smaller-sized, once more stainless steel version released to commemorate 75 years of the Seamaster line. It is a thing of beauty and wears much more comfortably on the wrist, having stepped back the dimensions to echo something from the model family’s early years.
For me, the moment Omega releases this model (with a closed and decorated caseback showing Poseidon riding the waves) will be the moment I finally buy a PloProf — something I’ve wanted to do since I was a watchmaking student.
Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean 600m Chronograph
I’ll end this list with another unexpected entry. The Planet Ocean series sometimes feels like something from the recent past that should no longer exist, given the general leaning towards smaller watches, but this 45.5 mm monster remains wearable thanks to a toned-down colourway that really makes the most of the highly functional canvas provided.
Planet Ocean watches may be big and they may be a bit safe, but I would classify them among the best “boring” watches you can buy. By that I mean they are slow burners. They reward long-term wear. They are immediately greeted by a lukewarm reception that will steam and bubble until it overboils in time.
Your watch-loving buddies might ask you why you chose this watch when you had another 832 Omegas to choose from, but after a while, once it’s bedded into your wrist and become your go-to ticker, it’ll make all the sense in the world to onlookers, and, most importantly, you.
