Space Invaders: Watchmakers Revisit Their Fascination with the Stars

The watch industry’s fascination with the cosmos, coupled with a desire to render it in miniature, continues to be a prime focus of the mechanical watchmaking renaissance. From Omega’s Dark Side of the Moon anniversary edition and Van Cleef & Arpels’ marvelous functional planetarium for the wrist to Louis Moinet’s Skylink that encapsulates a piece of space history, astronomically inspired timepieces remain an enduring obsession among the Swiss, who consistently turn out a plethora of new models paying homage to the stars—and for good reason. Over the past 20 years, demand for mechanical watches boasting a relationship to the heavens has soared. Beam us up!