Sight to Last a Lifetime: Omega Watches and Orbis International's Teddy Bear Campaign

Yesterday, October 8th was World Sight Day.  In a playful, new ad campaign with serious intentions, Omega has partnered with Orbis International featuring six of Omega's brand ambassadors: Cindy Crawford, Nicole Kidman, Zhang Ziyi, Sergio Garcia, Michael Phelps and Chad le Clos.  Each is holding a cuddly teddy bear.  

Maybe you've already seen Nicole Kidman hiding her smile while peaking over the head of the bear in national media such as the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. And you asked what's the meaning of the celebrity/teddy pairing?

Actually the bear is the real celebrity in the ad. 
 
Orbis International is a top-rated charity receiving 4 of 4 stars by Charity Navigator.  It's "an international non-profit non-governmental organization dedicated to saving sight worldwide. Orbis programs focus on the prevention of blindness and the treatment of blinding eye diseases in developing countries."

In its own words, Omega explains that "going to the hospital can be scary so we supply Orbis International with cuddly teddy bears for each of its young patients. They comfort the children and their families and help the surgeons explain the treatment to the patients. Following the treatment, the teddy bear will have a matching eye patch."

Since its founding in 1982, Orbis has visited 92 countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia.  In 2013, it provided training to 22,000 medical professionals and performed 5.7 million medical and optical treatments. 

One of its most visible ways of doing this is the Flying Eye Hospital (FEH), a McDonnell-Douglas DC 10-10 equipped with an on board ophthalmic training center with a 48-seat classroom connected via overhead cameras and an interactive audio system to a full surgical suite, laser  and recovery rooms and more.

You can fully experience the incredible impact of the Orbis FEH in The Hospital in the Sky, a 48 minute Omega/Orbis produced documentary film. This follows Cindy Crawford and her thirteen year old daughter on a training/surgical flight mission to Northern Peru. It's beautifully filmed, poignantly narrated and truly unforgettable. 

Omega/Orbis produced a similar, shorter documentary in 2012 featuring brand ambassador, Daniel Craig titled, Through Their Eyes. It documents Craig's visit to the Flying Eye Hospital when it was in Mongolia.

Watching either of these two films will change your perspective on the gift of sight we so often overlook.  

A portion of the profits from the sale of four Omega's models, the Constellation Quartz 24 mm, the Constellation Co-Axial 27 mm, the De Ville Hour Vision Co-Axial 41 mm, and the De Ville Co-Axial Annual Calendar 41 mm is going to support Orbis and its Flying Eye Hospital.

Omega Constellation Quartz 24 mm

Omega De Ville Co-Axial Annual Calendar 41 mm 

Omega has been a supporter of Orbis since 2012.  It plans to continue its relationship indefinitely. Given Omega's longstanding reputation, that means for as far as the eye can see and then some.

In tribute to Omega's Orbis commitment, my own teddy bear wearing my husband's Omega Seamaster (for this post renamed the Seemaster) gives an ocular high five to the company, the charity and the campaign.

Urkundle Limitiere Edition, Papa Zausel © Maryhelen Raciti-Jones

Be Bond Sure It's Shaken, not Stirred: Omega's New Seamaster 300 Spectre Limited Edition

Of course you recognize the catchphrase, "Shaken, not Stirred" as belonging to 007's preferred method of preparing the perfect, classic martini. It's also a great phrase for the wrist action that Daniel Craig will be giving us this month in the new JB film Spectre premiering on October 26th.

For all of his on screen time, Craig/Bond will be wearing the Omega Seamaster Spectre 300 Limited Edition.

http://www.omegawatches.com/watches/seamaster/seamaster-300/master-co-axial-41-mm/23332412101001

David Bredan in his A Blog to Watch posting, August 14, 2015 gives a great run down of the defining elements to watch for when Bond's 300 Spectre Limited Edition comes into view:

• First it's mounted on a five striped, black-and-gray NATO strap. (Definitely an affordable trend take away for aspiring 007's.)

• The hour hand is straight-arrow broad and assertive while its companion minute hand is "amply-lumed."

• Its "lollipop" seconds hand is defiantly playful and contrasts nicely with its parental hours and minutes ending not in an arrow but in a circle. (James always has seconds to spare.)

• Since Bond and his 2015 fan base are world travelers, the watch's black polished ceramic bezel rotates bi-directionally, and its LiquidMetal indices run from 0 to 11 – 'so that time can be kept with any country in the world.' 

• As for exclusivity based on astute Omega product placement, each Seamaster 300 Spectre Limited Edition watch "will have its own unique serial number, again, out of 7,007, engraved on the back along with the James Bond Spectre film logo, celebrating the latest on-screen adventure."

If your curious, Spectre is the acronym  for Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion. It's a fictional global criminal syndicate and terrorist organization seeking world domination. It first appeared in Fleming's novel, Thunderball (1961) and in Dr. No (1962), the first Bond movie. Sean Connery wore a Rolex Submariner in that film.

Omega introduced the Seamaster, a divers watch  as one of its major models in 1948.  Five years later, in 1953, Ian Fleming gave the world James Bond in the novel, Casino Royale.  But it wasn't until Goldeneye (1995), that Bond (Pierce Brosnan, then Daniel Craig) began wearing it exclusively in the eight following films: Tomorrow Never Dies (1997); The World is Not Enough (1999); Die Another Day (2002); Casino  Royal (2006); Quantum of Solace (2008); Skyfall (2012); and now Spectre.

Quite a 20-year film run for an Omega wrist tie-in. Toast its product placement success with a dirty martini, Bond's martini of choice in Spectre and of course, be sure it's shaken, not stirred.

Related Wristwatchredux Omega Posts: 

Taking Time Into Space:  NASA and OMEGA's Speedmaster Anniversaries, June 1, 2015.

OMEGA:  Longstanding Olympian, February 15, 2014.   




  

Dials Too Can Get the Blues

For the last several months, I’ve had the Blog Block Blues.  Does that sound like  a 1:00 am piano blues instrumental?  Well, that’s what I call  my own soulful, blogging sloth.  I’ve been busy, yes, but just not with blogging. 

 

My ideas are there but I’ve lacked the cerebral will to work through them to publication.  My last post was in July and here it is late September.  Even though my earlier blog  page views are steadily increasing, they’re based on former posts not new content. 

 

But now, I’m back at it and surprisingly, my energy has been jump started by an environmental art installation that I saw in Breckenridge, Colorado several weeks ago. 

Blue River Plaza, Breckenridge, CO, August 24, 2015 ©  Maryhelen Raciti-Jones

The 2015 Breckenridge International Festival of the Arts (BIFA) showcased  Australian artist Konstantin Dimopoulos’ The Blue Trees project.  For the installation, volunteers throughout the downtown temporarily transformed tree trunks  -- mostly aspens and cottonwoods -- by applying a water-based, biologically safe ultramarine blue pigment. It reminded me of an avenue of International Yves Klein Blue columns at an elevation of 9,600 feet. 

Beyond being surprisingly beautiful, the trees are visually provocative and make you think about how color can change your perception of the natural world.

According to a FACTS + FAQS posted about the project, "Color is a powerful stimulant, a means of altering perception and defining space and time. Blue is a color that is not naturally identified with trees and suggests that something unusual, something out of the ordinary is happening. In nature, color is used both as a means of protection and as a mechanism to attract. The Blue Trees is an attempt to elicit a similar response from viewers and inspire conversation and action around deforestation issues."

So how does Dimopoulos’ Breckenridge Blue Trees connect with my interest in wristwatches and extend the deforestation conversation?  

The segue way is trunk color to dial color.  Quirky as this may seem, it has reminded me of how art and time can have a reality-based, conceptual intimacy. 

The  blue dial bandwagon has been growing worldwide over the last few years writes Mark Bernado in his post, "Feeling Blue: 21 Watches with Blue Dials and Blue Straps."  Not surprisingly, the luxury likes of Rolex, Omega, Bremont, Breitling, Harry Winston, Jaquet, Droz, Patek, Philippe, and Louis Moinet to name a few have all introduced blue dial models over the last several years.

So I decided to explore the blue dial trend and went looking for women's models that in their designs recalled my aesthetic excitement  at seeing Dimopoulos' trees. 

After looking at literally a forest of blue-faced possibilities, I found one to herald my flagship return to writing. It reflects Dimopoulos' worldwide Blue Trees installations in such cities as  London, Vancouver, Houston, and Albuquerque and represents his environmental message. 

Quest & Quality  (Q&Q) Watches - SmileSolar Series  -- Green & Gray with Blue Dial (RP00J008Y)

Image from http://www.piqproducts.com/collections/solar-powered-recycled-watches/quest-quality

This is the perfect watch to lead my own Blue Dial Bandwagon. It embodies the universal precept that one way to combat climate change resulting from deforestation is to recycle materials and buy products made from them. This watch is ultra affordable (around US $40) and has a case and strap made from recycled materials.

Another plus. It does not require batteries. It's powered by the sun -- just as sunlight nurtures the growth of trees -- with one solar charge keeping the watch going for up to 3 1/2 months. The solar cell resides at the edge of the dial from the 2 to 10 o'clock position like a smiley face.

This year, The Q&Q SmileSolar Series received an award in the Good Design Australia Selection in the "Housewares, Fashion, and Objects" Category. The judges "highly appreciated the sophisticated design underpinned by solid environmental credentials."

As fall's autumnal-hued leaves and dials claim our attention, take time to also see the natural landscape as blue-hued. 

I hope that with this post, you like me are inspired to see blue as the new, tree trunk white, tan, brown or gray and what conservation and recycling mean to preserving our planet's life.

 Update (October 3, 2015):  I've just read about a new book that reflects some of the ideas writers and artists have had about expressively connecting with nature. It's titled, The Oxford Handbook of Ecocriticism (Greg Garrard, editor, Oxford University Press, 2014). In a comprehensive review of it by Sam Solnick in The Times Literary Supplement  September 4, 2015, he writes, "Ecocriticism is the body of thought and work that broadly put, studies the relationship between ecology and the arts, particularly in the face of an emerging sense of environmental crisis." 

Wristwatch Writings: Descriptive Elements for Friendly Conversations

A number of my friends have asked me for a listing of the descriptive elements that they can use when talking about their own wristwatches.  Here are some conversational starting points:

 

Overall Look

Formal, Smart Casual, Informal, etc.?

What is its personality? Classical, Modern?

How does it expand, complement, contradict your own personality?

Does it have any interesting, historical precedents?

Dials and Sub dials

Numbers or other indices on the dial?

Where are they placed?  Opposite each other?  At what hour indices?

Are they numbers, if so what font? Roman,  Arabic, etc.

If not, how are they designated?

Balanced or asymmetrical placement?

What are their functions (i.e. complications)?

Crown

What is its shape?

Does it have a decorative element?

What material(s) is it made from?

Hands

How many?  Hour, minute, sub dial hands—same or different than main ones?

What style are they?

What anchors them?  Gemstone(s)?

Casings (Cases)

Size in mm? 

Case material, e.g. stainless steel, IP rose gold, etc ?.

Are there variations among various dial and case materials — giving each a different look? (Example: black dial, silver numerals; white dial, black numerals?).

Shape? Rectangular, circular, oval, etc.?

What’s on the case back?

Movements

Mechanical? Quartz?

Bands

Strap:  What material is it?  Leather, Calfskin, Fabric, etc?

Bracelet Style?  Cuff,  Milanese, etc.?

Buckles/Clasps

Prong? Other?

I'll be adding to this initial, descriptive list.  It's just a starting point.

Help me out on this as we expand our conversations.   

Remembering Everlasting Times: Isabel Marant's "A Hand in My Hand" Wristwatch

In an April 2014 blog post, "Timex: Time Spent on Durability," I recounted remembering my father's Timex watch and how much it meant to me to see him wear it.  It still reminds me of him when I wear it. It symbolizes our everlasting times together. The special occasion that I wore it was when Central Michigan University's College of Business Administration inducted him into its Hall of Fame in November 2014.

This month I discovered Isabel Marant through Net-a-Porter. One of her web collection showcasings  brought back similar memories of how a wristwatch can be a signifier for a daughter's time with her father.

Isabel Marant is a young French fashion designer with boutiques in Europe, the United States, the Middle and Far East.  In 2012 she created a wristwatch called, A Hand in Time." Her inspiration for it came from her paternal memories:

"A hand in my hand. My father's hand. A hand marked by time, magnificent like childhood memories. A thin wrist encircled by a gold watch, which stays in my memory like an extension of him."

http://www.isabelmarant.com/en/collaborations/1577-a-hand-in-my-hand.html

What is particularly noteworthy and laudable about this timepiece is that it represents a global, ethically-based design/production collaboration between Isabel Marant and JEM Process (Jewelery Ethically Minded), also in Paris.  The JEM Process is based on a commitment to "transparency of the production chain and full traceability of the raw material" and an eco-responsible sourcing of precious metals, certified Fairmined.

Our parental memories can be so dear. I look forward to reporting more ethical design/production wristwatches coming from collaborations of such exemplary, principled caliber.