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After much teasing, yet landing earlier than suggested in Swatch’s print ads featuring the cartoon pooch’s paw print on the lunar surface, the much-awaited Snoopy MoonSwatch has dropped.
Swatch is calling this latest collaboration with Omega the Mission to Moonphase. The new model is all white, to celebrate the full moon, apparently, and will go on sale March 26, but no price is mentioned in the launch materials. It will be, like the other MoonSwatches, non-limited, so those unable to grab one next week should be able to eventually secure this new Snoopy model.
Like existing MoonSwatch models, this Snoopy watch is equipped with the chronograph function. It also features a moon-phase function, showing the different lunar phases on the subdial at 2 o’clock, complete with the Peanuts character lying on the celestial satellite. Indeed, this is the first time Swatch has combined a moon phase with a chrono.
Continuing the company's recent penchant for hiding text on watches, Omega placed a quote from Snoopy’s comic strip in the moons and stars that can be seen under UV light.
Another comic touch is a cartoon moon with a Snoopy paw print in the dust surface on the battery cover of the 42-mm piece, alongside a “spacesuit-ready” Velcro strap, also all in white.
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The connection between Snoopy and Omega is long established, and it's likely this iteration of the wildly successful Swatch collaboration will be its most popular model, especially as it is a proper new iteration and not a version of the Moonshine Gold MoonSwatches. “There seems to be an increasingly sonorous groan echoing throughout the enthusiast space with each new, and somewhat gimmicky, release,” watch site Time+Tide wrote upon the release of one timepiece that arrived to coincide with National Swiss Day. No such criticisms can be made concerning the Mission to Moonphase.
This also means, however, that anyone waiting for a budget Swatch Snoopy Speedmaster will need to be prepared to, once again, stand in line at selected Swatch stores, because like the other models this won't be available to buy online.
Initially, the MoonSwatch was considered for online sales, and even Nick Hayek Jr., chief executive of Swatch Group, refused to rule out the possibility post-launch. “Ask me in four months if ecommerce can play a role,” he told WIRED in July 2022. “Perhaps. I don't know.” Nearly two years later, no MoonSwatch has been sold new online, nor does it look likely they ever will be.
The Omega and Snoopy space connection stems from NASA’s Silver Snoopy award, a silver lapel pin first awarded in 1968 for outstanding achievements related to flight safety or mission success. Omega was awarded the Silver Snoopy in 1970 after the Speedmaster played a vital role during Apollo 13, serving as backup to the broken instruments during the mission, with Jack Swigert using his to time the critical 14-second rocket engine burn, allowing a safe return to Earth.
However, it wasn’t until 2003 that Omega created what was to be the first in a series of Snoopy Speedmasters to commemorate the brand's spacefaring heritage.
Speaking to WIRED in January, when news of the Snoopy MoonSwatch first broke, watch specialist and WIRED contributor Tim Barber said such a model was inevitable. “Bringing in Snoopy was only ever a matter of time,” Barber said. “In fact, it’s remarkable there wasn’t a Snoopy version the first time around, which would of course have been the absolute must-have MoonSwatch.”
The MoonSwatch Mission to Moonphase is available beginning March 26, in selected Swatch stores. And, as with the whole MoonSwatch Collection, apparently only one watch can be purchased per person, per day, and per Swatch store.
