The claws are back, the pie-pan is not
By Julien Moreau, Geneva ·
Ask any Omega specialist of my generation for the most beautiful Omega ever made and a worrying number will name a 1950s Constellation with a pie-pan dial, and then look faintly embarrassed about it. Those early chronometers, launched in 1952, are among the most quietly elegant watches of the decade, with the observatory engraved on the back and dials faceted like a fine pastry dish.
This is not that watch. The modern Constellation descends from the 1982 Manhattan, with its four little claws, the griffes, gripping the bezel and the crystal, and the Roman numerals cut into the bezel itself. The 2020 redesign at 39 mm is the most refined version of that idea so far: a blue dial, a date, the 8800 with 55 hours behind an open back, 12.5 mm thick on a steel bracelet.
I can admire it without wanting it. The claws are clever but they are pure 1980s, and with 50 m of water resistance it is really a dress watch with a bracelet on. At sixty-four to sixty-nine hundred dollars, I would rather have the Jaeger Master Control and a good vintage Constellation for the weekend.
If you grew up in the eighties and remember your father's gold-and-steel Manhattan fondly, though, this will make you very happy. That is reason enough.