05-02-2025
Omega's Surprising New Seamaster Brings Back an Iconic Vintage Trait After 50 Years
It's the best dress watch from the brand in half a century.
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The Omega Seamaster is one of the most iconic dive watches in history, second only to the Rolex Submariner in name recognition. But unlike the Sub, James Bond's Omega of choice wasn't always a dive watch.
The Seamaster name dates back to 1948 when it debuted as a water-resistant dress watch. Omega's first Seamaster dive watch didn't debut until a decade later in 1957 with the Seamaster 300, and the classic 'Bond' Seamaster — the Diver 300M — has only been around since 1993.
Omega is the long-running official timekeeper of the Olympic Games, and the brand has gotten off to an early start in celebrating next year's Winter Olympics in Italy by releasing a special-edition Seamaster that recalls some of the earliest watches to bear that name.
In recent years, Omega has released a couple of Seamaster dress watches inspired by vintage models, namely the Seamaster 1948 which recalls the very first reference in the line. But the new Olympic-themed watch is the most exciting modern Seamaster dress watch yet because of one momentous detail: the return of 'dog-leg' lugs.
If you've ever perused vintage Omega dress watches, you may have come across the term dog-leg lugs before. This was a lug style used by the brand on some of its Constellation dress watches throughout the 1950s and '60s, with its last appearance seemingly occurring in the 1970s.
Dog-leg lugs have a distinctive angular bend in them, similar to a dog's rear leg, which is how the lugs got their colloquial name from collectors. The most coveted vintage Connies are those featuring both dog-leg lugs and 'pie-pan' dials, and the relatively rare style is highly popular with lovers of vintage Omega. To my knowledge, the style hasn't appeared on an Omega watch in nearly 50 years.
Dog-leg lugs are mainly associated with the Constellation, but they rarely showed up on vintage Seamasters, too, namely on the special Seamaster that Omega made for the Melbourne Olympic Games in 1956.
That watch featured a more dramatic variation on dog-leg lugs called spider lugs, along with other design traits more commonly associated with Connies of the period, including a hexagonal crown, faceted arrowhead markers and dauphine hands. It also, notably, was made of solid gold.
Omega's new Seamaster is the Seamaster 37mm Milano Cortina 2026, and it takes direct inspiration from the 1956 Olympic model. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear it was a vintage watch just based on its appearance.
The new dress watch marks the return of dog-leg lugs, and they are thankfully in the classic Constellation style instead of the more dramatic (and less popular) spider version seen on the watch's 1956 inspiration.
The watch's 37mm case is made from 18K Moonshine Gold, Omega's proprietary yellow gold alloy, and has a mirror-polished finish. The watch also more directly borrows the other Constellation-inspired traits from the Melbourne Olympics Seamaster, including the hexagonal crown, arrowhead indices and dauphine hands, all of which are in Moonshine Gold.
The caseback features the Milano Cortina Olympics logo in relief, while the dial is finished in white Grand Feu enamel. It appears just as a mid-century Omega dial would thanks to an applied vintage Omega logo at 12 o'clock in gold and vintage Seamaster script printed at 6. The script and minute track are both printed in gray Petit Feu enamel.
The internals of the watch are all modern thanks to the automatic Co-Axial Master Chronometer Calibre 8807, which boasts a silicon balance spring and a 55-hour power reserve.
The watch's box-style crystal takes after vintage models but is made of sapphire with anti-reflective coating on the interior. The gold clasp on the alligator strap also recalls vintage styles thanks to the 3D Omega logo on the buckle. Finally, true to the Seamaster name, the watch is water resistant to 100m.
Holy smokes, this is an awesome release. It is easily the best modern take on a vintage dress watch I've ever seen from Omega thanks mainly to the return of the dog-leg lugs, which is a big deal, but also for the way the entire package comes together. It looks like a vintage Omega dress watch — and a very nice one at that — but you get the benefit of a METAS-certified movement plus modern materials and reliability.
The whole package is pretty tough to beat, and it really makes me wish Omega would launch a new line of the Constellation that recalls the series' 1950s and '60s pie-pan glory days. (The Globemaster, while nice, feels a bit too big, sporty and overdesigned.)
Because Omega went luxe for this release and used a solid gold case, the price is decidedly high at $19,300. But if I had that kind of scratch, I'd happily pay that sum. This is the best dress watch Omega has put out in decades and hopefully is a sign of things to come from the brand.
$19,300 at Omega
