To celebrate OMEGA’s oceangoing icon, the Swiss brand produced a new Seamaster collection with bold dials that include a striking tone reminiscent of a perfect day on a boundless sea and invited VIPs to West Vancouver’s Beach House Restaurant to explore this year’s special editions in depth.
The seven iconic models – eleven watches in all – track a trajectory from dressy to serious dive tech. Common to all is OMEGA‘s Summer Blue, used in greater or lesser degrees to reflect the water resistance of each Seamaster and relate its depth-defying credentials at a glance: Aqua Terra represents the sun-drenched surface, Ultra Deep the dark abyss.
A VERY SPECIAL GUEST
Siphesihle (Siphe) November was born in Zolani, South Africa and trained at Canada’s National Ballet School. Siphesihle joined The National Ballet of Canada as a member of the Corps de Ballet in 2017 and was promoted to Principal Dancer in 2021.
He has danced such roles as Siegfried in Swan Lake, Peter/The Nutcracker in The Nutcracker, Bluebird in The Sleeping Beauty, Benvolio and Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, Puck in The Dream, and Lewis Carroll/White Rabbit in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. His repertoire includes The Winter’s Tale, Nijinsky, Anna Karenina, Night, A Streetcar Named Desire, Being and Nothingness, Paz de la Jolla, The Four Seasons, Elite Syncopations, Concerto, Orpheus Alive and The Dreamers Ever Leave You.
In 2019, Siphesihle won The International Competition for The Erik Bruhn Prize, and he was named one of Pointe Magazine’s Star of the Corps and one of Dance Magazine’s 25 to Watch in 2018. He was also featured in Beyond Moving, a documentary that followed his journey from South Africa to Canada. In 2022, he made his choreographic debut on the National Ballet’s mainstage with On Solid Ground.
For MAD HOT BALLET: Deco-Danse, he created All That Is Within for former First Soloist Tanya Howard to mark her retirement from the company. Siphesihle recently made his debut as Jimmy/Snowman in the world premiere of MADDADDAM by Wayne McGregor, the world premiere of Rena Butler’s Alleged Dances, and the Canadian premiere of Alonzo King’s The Collective Agreement. With his signature musicality, charisma, and brilliant technique, Siphesihle is a natural in classical and contemporary ballets.
HISTORY OF THE SEAMASTER
The story of the Seamaster begins 16 years before it was born, with the launch of the OMEGA “Marine” in 1932. This ingenious timepiece, successfully tested at 73-metres below the surface of Lake Geneva, also proved water-resistant at a depth of 135-metres when pressure-tested inside the Laboratory of Watchmaking Research in Neuchatel. This impressive start set the course for OMEGA’s rapid advancements in underwater design.
During WWII, OMEGA delivered over 110,000 watches for the pilots, navigators, and soldiers of Great Britain’s Ministry of Defence to support its Air Force and Navy pilots during service. That unprecedented experience allowed OMEGA to progress quickly in water resistance, anti-magnetism, and robustness and create a series of watches that could withstand the harshest conditions.
Famously, the MoD gave each watch a WWW engraving on the caseback, which stood for “Waterproof Wrist Watch.” The collection blended battle-proven technology with an elegant exterior to produce a watch for “town, sea and country.” It soon became clear which word of the three would define its future. In the heady rock ‘n’ roll years, a decade of optimism and exploration, the Seamaster came into its own as the watch of choice for undersea adventurers.
The starting point for this new trajectory was the Seamaster 300, released in 1957. Wave after wave of extraordinary models followed. Each offers exciting new designs, innovative technologies, and even greater levels of water resistance. Along the way, the watch with the distinctive seahorse logo would play a key role in ocean exploration and conservation as the timepiece of choice for the curious and the deeply concerned.
Today, OMEGA is able to test every one of its water-resistant watches in a real underwater environment, thanks to the brand’s industry-leading facilities and the certification standards set by METAS (the Swiss Federal Institute of Metrology). These timepieces, launched to celebrate the Seamaster line, pay tribute to an extraordinary history of innovation, exploration, ocean-tested performance and design.
Author Profile
- Helen Siwak is the founder of EcoLuxLuv Marketing & Communications Inc and publisher of Folio.YVR Luxury Lifestyle Magazine and PORTFOLIOY.YVR Business & Entrepreneurs Magazine. She is a prolific content creator, consultant, and marketing and media strategist within the ecoluxury lifestyle niche. Post-pandemic, she has worked with many small to mid-sized plant-based/vegan brands to build their digital foundations and strategize content creation and business development. Helen is the west coast correspondent to Canada’s top-read industry magazine Retail-Insider, holds a vast freelance portfolio, and consults with many of the world’s luxury heritage brands. Always seeking new opportunities and challenges, you can email her at helen@ecoluxluv.com.
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