The biggest of the Swiss watch brands have made this regenerative approach an art form
FEW months back, I met a retired Austrian gentleman who was in the UK visiting his sister-in-law, a friend of mine. I’m sure she introduced him and told me his name, but, honestly, I wasn’t listening. Rather than respond with my name or even the simple courtesy of a hello, I asked him whether on his wrist that was indeed an original Omega Speedmaster MkII, a watch I happen to be partial to, but had never seen in the wild. It was. He’d bought it in the early 1970s, not because he was working for NASA (we’ll get to that), but because, as he said with familiar watch-buyer economy, he liked it. He kindly removed it and allowed me to admire its almost seamless barrel-shaped case, its punchy reddy-orange dial detailing and the now smooth and
