Here We Go Again: the Swatch x Omega Mission to Moonphase New Moon

Well, here we go again. Just a few weeks after the launch of the Swatch x Omega Mission to Moonphase, which saw Snoopy appearing on a pure white MoonSwatch, we’ve got an entirely new creation featuring our beagle friend. By entirely new of course what I really mean is: another color. The Mission to Moonphase New Moon is an all black rendering of the Mission to Moonphase concept. Swatch has been teasing this release over the past several days on social media, so it’s not exactly a surprise, unless you think about the very existence of these watches in the first place, and the conversation that develops around them whenever a new one drops, which is, on its face, surprising. 

The new Mission to Moonphase New Moon arrives just before April’s new moon, which is also the date of the total solar eclipse that will be visible to millions of Americans in the eastern part of the country (and many more will see a partial eclipse, which is still quite a thing). One wonders why Omega and Swatch didn’t come up with an eclipse themed watch for the occasion. There are all kinds of ways to play with the idea of blotting out the sun. A Bioceramic rendition of the sun’s corona could have been a pretty cool thing. I shouldn’t say “could have been,” of course. It could well be in the works. Quantum physics has proven that if enough time passes, every possible rendition of the MoonSwatch will eventually come to fruition.

Back to the Mission to Moonphase at hand. The New Moon rendition of the watch appears to be the exact inverse of the white one we saw last month. Same case, same complication, same imagery of Snoopy sleeping in the moonphase subdial, and the same hidden message is seen when a UV light is flashed on the dial. 

Regular readers will know, and new ones have no doubt surmised, that I’m not much of a fan of the MoonSwatch project. It seems, frankly, to have become a somewhat cynical ploy to generate hype for watches with a certain amount of manufactured scarcity. That said, these new Mission to Moonphase watches are pretty endearing, and the simplicity of black and white executions has a symmetry that I find appealing. And hopefully if you’re MoonSwatch curious and find yourself lined up at a Swatch store to buy one of these on April 8 (for $310) and they inevitably run out, you’ll be happy to browse the almost never ending selection of legitimately cool Swatch watches that are readily available. Personally, I’m quite fond of the Simpsons donut watch, and the many watches inspired by great works of art (you know, like the Simpsons).

The new Mission to Moonphase New Moon is not a limited edition, but it will only be available at select Swatch boutiques when it launches on April 8. Head to the Swatch website for more.