OMEGA Andrew Grima De Ville ref.8333 / Sterling Silver, Lapis Lazuli Dial

— Advanced thinking fused with ornament —

A model beyond the frame of a watch, where fine Swiss engineering crosses with avant-garde jewellery art.

Evidence written into the depths of design history, still giving off the dull shine of solid silver in silence.

— A jeweller chosen by royalty —

The true height of British cool: London in the lively 1960s.

There was one craftsman who stood out above all others in jewellery — Andrew Grima.

Called the leading designer of modern jewellery, he kept a fine boutique on Jermyn Street, in the heart of Mayfair.

His work was expensive and made to order, and his clients included members of the British royal family, among them Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret.

Grima was an important figure among the royalty of British jewellery, and his work is held in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

He did not design watches until the end of the 1960s, and went as far as to say that if you wanted to know the time you could ask your driver.

Today the equivalent would be to say that if you want the time, you look at your phone.

For him a wristwatch was not merely an instrument for knowing the hour: he valued its side as jewellery, and seems to have found the real meaning in the ornament itself.

— A dial holding the breath of a blue sky —

A lapis lazuli dial comes from the one-of-a-kind beauty of a natural stone, and from the difficulty of working it.

Its scarcity raises a watch from an instrument for marking time into a work of art.

Particles of pyrite mix in naturally, giving off a shine like stars scattered across a night sky.

Because it is a natural stone it has a breath all its own, and every example has a different expression.

Never falling into showiness, never coarse.

For anyone after a masterpiece of Omega that stands for the 1970s, this is a precious chance to hold the beat of a lost era.

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