Swatch Just Won Me Back with the Most Gorgeous MoonSwatch Yet

It’s safe to say that MoonSwatch releases don’t hit quite like they used to. More than two years on from the Earth-shattering release of the original MoonSwatch, many have grown tired of Swatch’s endless iterations on the form.

Even the Snoopy MoonSwatches that debuted earlier this year didn’t exactly set the world on fire like I had anticipated, despite being inspired by some of the most hyped Omega Speedmasters in existence, the Silver Snoopy Award models.

But Swatch’s latest MoonSwatch release, in my opinion, is a game changer and is the most exciting MoonSwatch since the initial wave. Not only is it arguably the best-looking MoonSwatch yet, but it’s also different from every other MoonSwatch in some key ways.

Swatch

Swatch x Omega MoonSwatch Mission to the Super Blue Moonphase

• $310 at Swatch

A MoonSwatch Unlike Any Other

The new MoonSwatch is the Mission to the Super Blue Moonphase, and there are a couple of things about its eye-catching design that stand out to me.

First is the color scheme. The blue BioCeramic case paired with the navy blue and silver opaline panda dial is seriously attractive and is the most traditional-looking panda dial we’ve seen on a MoonSwatch yet.

While we have seen a few MoonSwatches with panda-style dial layouts in other colors, we’ve never seen any with a minute track in a different color from the rest of the dial. The bold navy minute track of the Super Blue Moonphase matches the subdials, creating a more complex dial than we’ve ever seen on a MoonSwatch before.

Swatch

Another feature appearing for the first time in a MoonSwatch on this model is found on the bezel. Every other MoonSwatch, like the Moonwatch, has a tachymeter bezel that can be used to calculate speed when used in conjunction with the chronograph.

The Super Blue Moonphase, however, ditches the tachymeter for a pulsometer bezel. Pulsometers are used to measure a person’s heart rate and are not something you’ll find on a Speedmaster Moonwatch Professional.

The use of luminous paint for the hands and markers that appears blue in daylight is also a MoonSwatch first, and while we have seen MoonSwatches with a luminous moonphase before thanks to the Snoopy MoonSwatches, this marks the first time the complication has appeared on a MoonSwatch sans beagle.

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MoonSwatch or CK2998Swatch?

The most interesting thing to me about the new MoonSwatch is that it’s not actually modeled after a Moonwatch. Not from a design standpoint, at least.

Several of those features I just mentioned, namely the contrasting minute track and pulsometer bezel, aren’t found on the Moonwatch. But they are seen on a different Speedmaster, the reference CK2998.

Debuting in 1959, CK2998 is one of the oldest Speedmaster references and pre-dates the “Professional” model that became the Moonwatch. It has some notable stylistic differences from the more famous Speedy, including alpha-shaped hands, straight lugs as opposed to twisted and a smaller 39.7mm case.

Omega

Omega has brought back the CK2998 a few times over the past decade, most notably with limited-edition versions in 2016 and 2018. The 2016 version had a blue-and-silver panda dial with a contrasting blue minute track. This dial, to my eye anyway, served as the clear inspiration for the new MoonSwatch.

The 2018 CK2998 was a more traditional black and white panda dial with a bright red chronograph seconds hand. Admittedly, it doesn’t look much like the new MoonSwatch, but it did have a pulsometer bezel — a relatively rare feature on Speedmasters.

I believe Swatch combined features from both of these modern CK2998 Speedmasters when creating the new MoonSwatch, then added in a moonphase to make it its own thing. The case and hands are still borrowed from the classic Moonwatch, but otherwise, this MoonSwatch is less like its eponymous inspiration than any other.

Swatch

Buying the Super Blue Moonphase

MoonSwatches are notoriously a pain to purchase. Swatch long ago reneged on its initial promise of making MoonSwatches available online, meaning you still have to go to a physical Swatch store, and possibly wait in a line, to buy one.

But Swatch has somehow made the buying process for the Mission to the Super Blue Moonphase even more tedious.

Conceived to be a “once in a blue moon” type of release, the new watches will only be available from August 1 – 19 in select Swatch stores and pop-ups. Not only that, but the watches will only be on sale on those days after 5 pm local time in each of the respective locations, meaning you’ll only have a few hours each day to buy a watch.

Swatch

The small purchase window honors the year’s first supermoon — which also happens to be a blue moon — on August 19, and practically guarantees long lines every day for the new MoonSwatch release. If Swatch’s goal was to make the MoonSwatch a hype machine again, I’d say they succeeded.

I just wish the watch wasn’t so damn beautiful, because now I might have to go and get in line myself.

Swatch

Swatch x Omega MoonSwatch Mission to the Super Blue Moonphase

Specs

Case Size	42mm
Movement	ETA quartz chronograph moonphase
Water Resistance	30m

• $310 at Swatch

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