March 1st, 1983. A new player came into the watch world – Swatch and it quickly made waves in the industry. Releasing 12 colourful watches, each comprised of 51 individual parts, well made and at a reasonable price. The market went wild for them.
Now in 2020, Swatch is looking back at those original watches but with a new spin on materials. This new collection of six models offer reinterpretations of the first Swatch watches and feature bespoke typography as well as two newly introduced bio-source materials extracted from the seeds of a castor plant.
Even the packaging is made of paperfoam, consisting of an innovative mix based on potato and tapioca starch. The packaging made with an injection molding process is fully biodegradable and can be recycled with paper waste or even composted at home. Not many watch collectors will be doing that though.
Most of the limited edition watches are snapped up as soon as they are announced with prices ranging between $2,500 and $60,000 until its most recent announcement. Hodinkee teamed up with Swatch to create the latest collaboration – the Swatch Sistem 51 Hodinkee Vintage 84 to give its full name. It is accessible for most too, priced at $150 described as, “interesting, democratic, and just flat-out cool.”
SCDW 