On April 4th, OMEGA came to New York City. Its new flagship store at 711 Fifth will be the 51st OMEGA Boutique. The company’s entire product palette will be on offer.
The flagship store is an important part of OMEGA’s retail strategy. In December of 2000, Nicolas Hayek, the Chairman of the Swatch Group, made a bold announcement at the grand opening of the first OMEGA Boutique in Zurich. OMEGA’s ambitious goal, he said, was to extend the corporate boutique network to include 50 retail shops devoted exclusively to OMEGA products within ten years. OMEGA met that target in 2008.
A piece of history – JFK’s inaugural watch
On display will be the OMEGA Ultra-Thin watch, which was worn by John F. Kennedy during his inaugural address in January of 1961. The watch now belongs to the OMEGA Museum at the company’s headquarters in Biel, Switzerland. Stephen Urquhart, the president of OMEGA, pointed out, “Given the watch’s history and provenance, it is an ideal piece to share with the visitors to our New York City Boutique It was on President Kennedy’s wrist when he urged Americans to ‘ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.’ We’re pleased to have this opportunity to share it with our American friends.”
A platinum Moonwatch – available exclusively in New York City
It was also President Kennedy who set the goal for Americans to land a man on the Moon and return him safely before the end of the 1960s. When the Apollo 11 Lunar Module landed on the Moon’s surface in July of 1969, the astronauts were wearing OMEGA Speedmaster watches (as has every NASA astronaut since 1963’s Mercury Faith 7 mission). On July 21st, 1969, the Moonwatch was born.
This year, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing, OMEGA is releasing limited editions of the Speedmaster Professional Apollo 11 “40th Anniversary” Moonwatch in stainless steel (7,969 pieces) and platinum (69 pieces).
The platinum version of the watch, which features an 18 Ct gold Apollo 11 patch on the caseback with a reduced version below the small seconds hand on the dial, will initially be available exclusively at the OMEGA Boutique in New York City.
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