Traveling through time with Swatch 1984 Reloaded

1984 was one of those years that define entire eras: Prince dominated the charts with Purple Rain, Madonna's pop phenomenon was preparing to explode with the release of Like a Virgin, the video game Tetris arrived on the market for the first time and Swatch, at the time born only a year before, entered the Guinness Book of Records for the construction of a giant watch, located on the headquarters of the Commerzbank in Frankfurt, weighing 13 tons and height of 162 meters, while in the brand's ETA factory in Granges the millionth model was produced. It was a revolutionary era for the world of watches: thanks to Swatch and its iconic colorful timepieces, watch design came out of jewelry and entered youth culture, introducing the world to a new democratic design that has become a myth through the decades. Today, the aesthetic of those archival watches is back, riding the wave of 80s style, in a new bio-innovative and sustainable reinterpretation with the Swatch 1984 Reloaded collection.

Swatch installation at Commerzbank in Frankfurt (1984)

The invention of Swatch was a turning point for watches Swiss Made. After the 60s, in fact, the thickness of the case was a fundamental feature of watches and the Swiss manufacture had to compete with the cheap quartz watches that were produced in Asia. Thanks to an important collective research work made between the end of the 70s and the beginning of the 80s, a manager named Nicolas G. Hayek managed to create the prototype of a watch that met Swiss quality standards but with a much simpler and lighter construction, using plastic and fiberglass to create very thin cases that could be mass-produced. In March 1983 the first twelve models of the brand saw the light that found immediate success thanks to Hayek's brilliant marketing strategy, which included record-breaking installations such as that of Frankfurt and collaborations with artists, and which started the myth of the brand and raised the fortunes of the entire Swiss watch industry.

The brand's new watch collection gives new life to its heritage by replicating the design of the original models thanks to the use of Bioceramic, an innovative mix of ceramic powder and bioplastic obtained from castor oil that is both light and resistant but also has a texture similar to that of silk on the skin.

The Gent and New Gent models are offered in five different colorways with graphics on the dial that recall the stylistic moods of the 80s – and all have the Bioceramic case and buckle, while the strap and loop are made from plastic of biological origin. On the swatch.com website there is also a special packaging with two models characterized by graphics inspired by the anti-modernist Memphis movement.