James List is pleasantly surprised at the new Omega De Ville.
Being an Omega fan these days can sometimes feel like being a fan of Al Pacino. No matter how much I love Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, The Panic in Needle Park (hell, I even liked Cruising) there’s nothing that forgives the atrocities he’s made ever since giving up acting in favor of playing a parody of himself (88 minutes springs to mind). How does this relate to Omega? Well, as much as I appreciate their effort trying to challenge some of their more upmarket competitors, I can’t help feeling like Omega’s best and most classical design days are behind them. The worst contemporary example of a trainwreck would be the “relaunched” Constellation, that we wrote about in early September. Another asinine design, the impressive movement aside, is the De Ville Hour Vision (pictured above) that Omega has been pushing so extensively lately. Maybe my distaste for it might be since I’m such a philistine when it comes to anything two-tone (the dial, in this case). However, a better guess would be that it’s just so bland. So, it is with great joy that I stumbled over the new chronograph version of the De Ville. Scheduled for a Valentine’s Day 2010 release (if only my significant other hadn’t been a mere student), the chronograph takes its design cues from yesteryear’s Olympic Speedmaster (co-incidentally also ugly as sin), with the day-of-the-week window taking the fifth counter’s place for legibility. – From James List