The ultimate flex: why watch brands are driven by the new space race

The sartorial decisions of astronauts are hardly labour-intensive. You have to wear a spacesuit and that is pretty much that. Clearly miffed by such restrictions, Jeff Bezos decided to go very big on his accoutrements when he blasted into space in July. Following his 11-minute flight, the tech titan stepped from his spacecraft onto the desert earth of west Texas in uncharacteristic garb. Bezos wore a cowboy hat and boots, presumably to labour the point about space being the last frontier.

Cranking up the symbolism, he then posed for pictures holding the goggles of female aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart. On his wrist, meanwhile, Bezos wore an Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch Master Chronometer.

To be fair, this was an unimpeachable choice, with Omega renowned as the watch brand that first conquered space. In the early 1960s, NASA bought a range of chronographs from different brands in a bid to find the most reliable watch for their astronauts. The watches were subjected to the most rigorous trials in the history of horology. The Speedmaster was the only one to pass.

Understandably, Omega has milked this lunar connection ever since and many Speedmaster models bear casebacks with the engraving: “Flight Qualified for all Manned Space Missions.” But they’re hardly the only watch brand to be fascinated with outer space. This year, Rolex released an Oyster Perpetual Cosmograph Daytona with a dial hewn from a 600 million-year-old meteorite. Other watches to have left the earth’s orbit include the Breitling Navitimer and the Seiko “Pogue” 6139.

This eagerness to shoot for the moon is driven by the positive brand associations. Space travel demonstrates a watch’s technical resilience, while astronauts are intrepid figures that exude all “the right stuff”. Watches and space are therefore a marriage made, if not in heaven, then slightly below it, among the stars.

But it’s hard to overlook the fact that in the 21st century, a watch is less a time-telling device than a conspicuous status signifier. And space is the ultimate flex.

We can all see the moon, but for most of us it’s forever out of reach. Perhaps that’s why so many of the world’s richest men – Bezos, Elon Musk, Richard Branson – are ploughing millions into launching their rockets. Any bog-standard oligarch can own a superyacht. To show you truly operate on the next level, the stakes are no longer sky-high, they’re intergalactic.