It was in 1926 that Rolex patented its Oyster case, which to the brand was the epitome of waterproofness, given that its bezel, caseback, and winding crown were all screwed down against the middle case to make sure the entire assemblage was hermetically sealed. To prove its effectiveness, Hans Wilsdorf, founder of Rolex, decided to do something practical. He asked Mercedes Gleitze, a young secretary from Brighton, England, who was readying to swim across the English Channel, to carry an Oyster with her to demonstrate its waterproofness. Gleitze agreed, and went on to become the first British woman to swim across the English Channel. Rolex states that a journalist for The Times newspaper reported that she, “Carried a small gold watch, which was found [...] to have kept good time throughout.”
What Wilsdorf did was let the watch talk for itself, and the association with Gleitze went a long way to prove the watch’s reliability. Today, partnerships between watch brands and ambassadors are much more official and elaborate, with the former carefully choosing the people, activities, institutions, and social causes that personify their ethos; in return, actors, artistes, sportspersons, and social entrepreneurs offer gravitas that helps in popularising a collection or creating recall about shared values. But, when it comes to hardy tool watches that serve very specific purposes, what role does this partnership play today?
Field Testing
There have been several examples over the past two years that prove that partnerships for tool watches have taken on a strong, symbiotic persona. In 2022, Montblanc unveiled two references of the 1858 Geosphere 0 [read: zero] Oxygen, and buoyed by its success, four more this year (one feature on our cover). A world first, the Montblanc 1858 Geosphere 0 Oxygen watch has no oxygen inside the case and therefore is not susceptible to fogging. This also results in lesser wear and tear of the movement. The first of the 2022 releases was dedicated to mountaineer Nimsdai Purja, who in 2019 climbed the 14 highest peaks in the world in six months and six days. In 2022, he ascended Kanchenjunga, Everest, and Lhotse in eight days, 23 hours and 10 minutes, while wearing the Montblanc 1858 Geosphere Chronograph 0 Oxygen, and without supplemental oxygen, which echoed the ethos of the watch.
The second 2022 release, the bronze case 1858 Geosphere 0 Oxygen Limited Edition inspired by the Mont Blanc mountain, was taken to its summit by Simon Messner, son of legendary mountaineer Reinhold Messner, who in 1978 became the first man to climb Everest without supplemental oxygen.
It was, in fact, Reinhold Messner who inspired the creation of the 0 Oxygen watch. “Reinhold Messner was climbing without oxygen, so the idea was how can we connect him to zero oxygen,” recalls Laurent Lecamp, Managing Director, Montblanc Watch Division. In 2020, the brand first teamed up with Messner Sr. to unveil the 1858 Geosphere Messner Limited Edition. “When I met him, I asked if he could climb Everest without oxygen again, and he said he was too old for it. But he could tell me who could do it—Nimsdai. So, to connect the watch with his experience, we removed the oxygen from inside the watch. We developed a chamber at our atelier in Le Locle, and are assembling watches in a zero-oxygen environment. When you remove the oxygen from inside the watch, you have components that will last longer; there is no humidity and low oxidation. There is a connection with Reinhold Messner, but there is a technical aspect as well, an innovative one.”
It is with a similar path-breaking mountaineer that the British brand Bremont has a tie-up. In 2023, 37-year-old Norwegian mountaineer Kristin Harila set a record for summiting the 14 highest peaks in just three months, 17 hours, and 45 minutes, making her the fastest person ever to do it, along with Nepalese climber Tenjin ‘Lama’ Sherpa. With Bremont being the Official Timing Partner, Harila achieved the feat wearing the S300 Vigo, of which she says, “The Bremont S300 is trustworthy, sturdy and accurate. Everything you demand from something you wear while pushing your limits to the extremes.” The 40mm steel watch features a three-part Trip-Tick® case construction and a closed caseback. The dial is highly legible and lumed, with a date function at 3 o’clock; a ceramic bezel frames the case. The fact that all these facets were field-tested by Harila, much like the Rolex that accompanied Gleitze, are proof of the line’s ruggedness.
Harila isn’t the only person providing ‘real-world, real-time’ testimony for the ruggedness of Bremont watches. In 2023, the brand unveiled the high-performance mechanical dive watch, Waterman Apex II, with American big wave surfer and waterman Laird Hamilton, who tested the timepiece himself. A limited edition of 350 pieces, the 43mm stainless-steel watch has a water resistance of 500 metres, strong luminescence, a helium escape valve and crown protector, GMT and date function, and an automatic movement with a 50-hour power reserve.
Face Value
The other way that brands have gone is, of course, building something impactful and getting an equally impactful face to endorse it. In 2023, Richard Mille set the tone for this sort of collaboration with the creation of its RM 07-04, its first sports watch collection dedicated to women. Colourful (six fun combinations) and ultra-light (five in Quartz TPT® and one in Carbon TPT®, weighing just 36gm), the skeletonised watches had an hour, minutes, and function selector (50 hours power reserve), and focused on performance and resistance (shock resistance at 5000gs). Three years in development, the watches were endorsed by hardcore women athletes who truly personified all its characteristics. There was the Belgian two-time Olympic gold-winning heptathlete and pentathlete Nafi Thiam; French racing driver Margot Laffite; Ukrainian high jumper Yuliya Levchenko, American professional golfer Nelly Korda; Czech snowboarder and alpine skier Ester Ledecká; and American racecar driver Aurora Straus. Richard Mille could have gone the larger-than-life celebrity sports star way, but the fact that it chose staunch sports people is telling of the way it wanted to communicate about the toughness of its new watches.
In perhaps a similar vein, Swiss freeride snowboarder, base jumper, glacier plane pilot and wingsuit pioneer Geraldine Fasnacht joined the Longines family in 2022, and personified the brand’s Spirit line of aviation watches; in 2014, she became the first-ever wingsuit pilot to fly from the summit of the Matterhorn, a mountain in the Alps. Launched in 2020, the Spirit collection’s inspiration can be traced back to the pioneering spirit of aviators Amelia Earhart and Elinor Smith, who used Longines instruments and wristwatches for navigation in the early 20th century. At TAG Heuer, the brand welcomed three athletes in 2023—track and field athletes Fred Kerley and Letsile Tebogo, and Canadian swimmer Summer McIntosh. All three endorse the brand’s Connected watches and its plethora of health- and fitness-oriented applications.
At Tudor, there is Portuguese big wave surfer Nic Von Rupp, whose association with the brand started in 2022, under the #BornToDare campaign, which recognises those who have displayed extraordinary feats with a Tudor watch on their wrists. Rupp rode some of the largest waves of last year sporting the Pelagos, a watch whose diving legacy goes back to the 1950s.
Stronger Together
However, what happens when an ambassador actually gets involved in designing a watch? The result could well be like the Zenith Chronomaster Sport Aaron Rodgers edition, the first timepiece the NFL quarterback has designed. Rodgers joined the Zenith family in 2021 and was drawn to the Chronomaster Sport line, which features the latest generation of the El Primero column-wheel chronograph that can measure 1/10th of a second. So, using that as a canvas for his first eponymous watch was a given. The steel Zenith Chronomaster Sport Aaron Rodgers Edition is a green dial, green bezel watch, which points to Rodgers’ long association with the Green Bay Packers, and has applied hour markers that resemble jersey numbers. Limited to 250 pieces, the watch’s sapphire display back is emblazoned with his ‘AR’ logo. “I have immense respect for Zenith’s history, and visiting their manufacture last year gave me an even deeper appreciation of their craftsmanship and dedication to excellence. Working with their team to incorporate all the different elements I wanted to include was a fun adventure and I couldn’t be happier to see our vision come to life in this watch,” says Rodgers.
A creative collaboration such as this one came to be in 2022 too, when TAG Heuer unveiled the Aquaracer Professional 300 Naomi Osaka Limited Edition (25 pieces only). The Aquaracer Professional 300 is the brand’s definitive dive watch, although this one had a lifestyle edge in a green hue that represented Osaka’s love for the game and nature. The watch featured diamond hour makers, a stainless-steel caseback with the Osaka’s official logo (a teddy bear holding a flower), and an additional strap repurposed from recycled fish nets.
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But if you want to see what a sustained creative partnership looks like, turn to Lewis Hamilton and IWC. The race car driver has been with the brand for over a decade, and has helped design two watches—the 2014 Ingenieur Chronograph Edition ‘Lewis Hamilton’ and the 2019 Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar Edition ‘Lewis Hamilton’. In 2023, the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One™ Team driver, who is known for his love for timepieces and understands what could become a collectable, lent his touch to the Portugieser Tourbillon Rétrograde Chronograph Lewis Hamilton, a platinum watch with a teal dial, flying tourbillon, chronograph function, a retrograde date display, and a matching textile strap. Limited to 44 pieces (the number Hamilton has raced with since the beginning of his career), the watch also features the seven-time F1™ world champions’s logo, resembling a panther’s eyes.
“His passion for IWC and comprehensive knowledge of mechanical watches were palpable at every stage of the two-year development process,” says Christian Knoop, Chief Design Officer, IWC Schaffhausen. “Lewis knew what he wanted and brought excellent ideas to the table. The timepiece combines his unerring sense of aesthetics and love of bold colours with some of the finest watchmaking technology developed in Schaffhausen.”
This article first appeared in WatchTime India’s Sports Watches Issue 2023, and has been updated for relevance
Images: Courtesy brand
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