Pre 1970 Swiss watchmakers rarely produced colour product photography. There are no documented images of OW’s original watches in their prototypical state. Furthermore, most OW watches were worn in professional environments and subjected to considerable daily abuse, many of the classic watches that survive today are heavily patinated, and pristine examples are scarce. So we commissioned specialist watch illustrator and typography expert Bjoern Altmann to retrospectively create original artworks of each watch, exactly as they would have looked brand-new. By studying period documents from the OW archives, and a cross-section of examples of each model, Altmann has skilfully created photo-real exemplifications of each watch, accurate in infinitesimal detail. The project is part preservation and part revelation. Details that may previously have gone unnoticed, hidden under scuffed crystals or burnished away by years of wear, are revealed. The ability to scrutinise these details like never before provides us with a greater understanding of how the design codes of OW watches evolved during the company’s most prolific period. The ‘OW Classics Immortalised’ project featured in Oracle Time
Read the OW Newsletter announcement here