The Omega Seamaster Diver 300M, in one form or another, has been around since 1993. But of all the various iterations over the decades, the most recent example with a polished ceramic dial, ceramic bezel, and Co-Axial caliber 8800 may be the one that’s finally found its footing.
It’s a watch that feels like it took 26 years to get right. Past designs teetered back and forth between a luxury watch and a tool watch over the years, and it was an absolute commercial success, but it never had a unanimous vote from the enthusiast community. If it weren’t for the on-screen endorsement by Pierce Brosnan – the suavest Bond of them all – would the watch have hung around in Omega’s lineup for as long as it did? Since its inception, the design has had an equal number of fans and detractors. The skeleton hands, helium escape valve at 10 o’clock, and scalloped bezel have forced a “love-it-or-hate-it” approach.
It’s a good thing the design did stick around as long as it has. The advent of modern material science in conjunction with the advancements in co-axial escapement and anti-magnetism technology have made this model – released in 2019 – the best it’s ever been. The fundamental design elements that make the watch polarizing are still there, but even the folks who bemoan them would be hard-pressed to disagree that there’s a ton of value in this execution. We’re used to seeing it in the iconic blue hue, but I think it’s the high-contrast white-dialed version that’s re-igniting the excitement over the Seamaster Diver 300M.
I’ve owned a “Bond Seamaster” for 14 years now, so I’ve had plenty of time to get acquainted with the idiosyncrasies of the overall design. But when I spent a week with the new white-dialed 2019 release, it actually didn’t feel familiar at all. It felt like I had to start back at square one with the watch. The changes Omega’s made have truly transformed the watch and forced me to see it in an entirely new light. It was like coming home to the house you grew up in after years away and discovering that you no longer know where everything is. I kept glancing at three o’clock for date. Nope. It’s at six o’clock now, just like the spatula that’s no longer in the kitchen drawer you thought it was in. The fonts have changed, like the layout of your childhood bedroom. It’s a guest room now. It’s all vaguely familiar, but it takes some serious getting used to. There’s a natural tendency to immediately reject change, but when it comes to this iteration of the fake Omega Seamaster Diver 300M, I think the old adage “change is a good thing,” certainly holds true.
In The Shadow Of A Modern Classic
In the beginning, there was indeed a variant of the Seamaster Professional 300M with a white dial, but it wasn’t nearly as pretty as its smooth blue sibling, ref. 2541.80. The white-dialed Seamaster, ref. 2542.20.00, couldn’t be the darling of the collection even if it wanted to be. Like most things in life, it’s hard to get it right on the first try. So how did the Seamaster Professional 300M become an icon?
The moment in the spotlight came two years after its release, when it appeared in the 1995 hit James Bond film, Goldeneye. According to Jason Heaton’s 2014 look at the Omega Seamaster 300 Master Co-Axial (it’s an entirely different watch, and the nomenclature is confusing, but decoding the myriad of executions and references and special editions is part of Omega’s charm), “costume designer Lindy Hemming chose an Omega Seamaster, then the blue-dialed version with the skeletonized sword hands. Hemming chose the Seamaster over other options largely based on the brand’s history with the British Navy, to which Bond had belonged. According to Hemming, ‘I had known contemporaries when I was in my twenties who were military and naval […] who all swore by their Omegas.'”
It matched Pierce Brosnan’s Bond perfectly, in the sense that it was pretty enough to consistently charm us, and only tough when it needed to be. The case came polished and brushed in a way that made it less tool-like and more flashy to match Bond’s businessman-like looks and diplomatic demeanor. The bracelet on both references that Bond wore – a quartz (2541.80.00) and an automatic (2531.80.00) – featured two rows of links that were also highly polished and incredibly comfortable. As the watch became part of the Bond identity, sales soared.
The blue Seamaster Professional 300M became an instant classic because of Bond. And in true Omega fashion, its popularity spawned dozens of iterations in different metals, dial colors, and complications. The 1990s and 2000s saw more than a handful of models emerge from the simple design that Bond popularized: There was a chronograph in titanium, a GMT with sword hands on a Speedmaster bracelet, a Japan-only midsize model with a red dial, a solid-gold version with a dark navy dial, a version in solid white gold produced for America’s Cup, a version designed for freediving dubbed the “Apnea,” a handful of 007 editions, a version in stainless and gold, another in titanium and rose gold. There are many more.
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We could go further down the hole of Seamaster Professional 300M Divers, but I think we have to narrow the scope to the sub-set of white dials in the Seamaster Professional 300M and Seamaster Diver 300M family to compare apples to apples. What I found is that not only is this version the most attractive white-dialed model Omega has ever produced in the range, but to me, it even eclipses the iconic blue-dialed models in terms of beauty. There’s something about the monochromatic theme that comes to life in this iteration in a way that no other model has captured.
To fully appreciate the balance of this current replica watches design, let’s take a look at earlier white dial executions in the Seamaster Diver and Professional 300M family.
