When asked to give my thoughts on which watch brand “won” 2022, I feared for a second that it might be a trick question. That’s because, for me at least, the answer is so forehead-slappingly obvious that you’d need to perform all sorts of mental gymnastics to conceive of any vaguely credible challengers. Last year, perfect super clone Omega simply ended any real debate on the question by delivering a barrage of releases that flaunted their technical wizardry, boldness and savoir-faire. In short, they absolutely killed it. Here are three reasons why…
Omega kicked off 2022 with the cheap super clone Omega Planet Ocean Ultra Deep Professional, essentially a civilian version of the concept watch that Victor Vescovo attached to his submarine on his 2019 journey when he plummeted 10,925 metres to reach the bottom of the Mariana Trench. The Ultra Deep was water-resistant to a gob-smacking 6000m. As Gregory Kissling, AAA quality replica Omega’s head of product management, told me: “That corresponds to a pressure of 7.5 tons, which is like an adult elephant sitting on this crystal.”
Admittedly, Swiss made copy Rolex eclipsed that depth later in the year with the Deepsea Challenge that was water-resistant to a preposterous 11,000m. But that watch had a cartoonish 50mm diameter. The remarkable thing about the Ultra Deep was how surprisingly wearable it is. It measures 45.5mm wide with a thickness of 18.12mm – that’s less than a standard Omega Planet Ocean Chronograph replica for men, a watch that, while big, is hardly outlandish. Made from sand-blasted titanium, the Ultra Deep also weighs just 123g (a steel Rolex Submariner, for example, weighs 155g).
Another cracking release was the luxury fake Omega Speedmaster ’57, which offered a shrewd evolution of the collection in all the right ways and was surely one of the most toothsome chronographs of the year. It wasn’t just the coloured dials that were head-turners, but the dramatically reduced slimness of the 40.5mm case. This new version now comes in at a svelte 12.99mm – 3mm thinner than the previous one – to transform the overall wearability of the watch.
The top super clone watch that sparked actual riots
Then, of course, there was Swiss made replica Omega’s collaboration on the BioCeramic MoonSwatch. This was the watch that no-one saw coming and a genius co-branding move that wasn’t just the watch release of the year, but arguably the entire decade.
Even the timing was exquisite, with the high quality super clone Omega MoonSwatch unveiled just before Watches & Wonders, thereby hijacking the agenda to become the main topic of conversation at a watch fair it didn’t even appear at. (As Nicholas Hayek Jnr said to us as at the MoonSwatch’s unveiling with a smile – “They’ll bring the watches, we’ll bring the wonders”.)
Soon the Swiss movement super clone Omega MoonSwatch was headline news in mainstream media because of the queues snaking around the block outside Swatch boutiques all over the world. Naysayers who believed the collab was a marketing stunt that cheapened the iconic Moon Watch were soon proved wrong with high end copy omega Speedmaster sales rocketing 50% in the wake of the release.
