THE JOURNAL
Watchmakers have always taken pride in creating timekeepers for every possible environment. After decades of experimentation and research, they successfully produced water-resistant dive watches in the 1940s and 1950s, which before long were competent enough to survive a trip to the very deepest point in the ocean.
These are not just PR triumphs, either – prior to the digital age, it was a matter of some significance to know how long you’d been underwater, or in the air. As long ago as the 18th century, it was the invention of an accurate marine chronometer that made it possible for ships to know their location at sea. And as recently as the 1970s, it was a mechanical chronograph that helped nurse Apollo 13 back to Earth. Computers may have taken over, but there is a reason that mechanical watches still make the kit list for polar expeditions, deep dives or visits to the International Space Station: a reliable back-up can still save lives.
It can feel like there are few reaches of our planet left to conquer, but we have barely started to investigate the so-called “final frontier”, the most unforgiving environment of all. Omega is rightly feted as the watchmaker to supply Nasa for its moon landings, but several others have produced watches that met the challenges posed by leaving our atmosphere. Among the names you’ll surely know – Breitling, Heuer and so on – is one with which you might be less familiar: Fortis.
Founded in 1912 in the Swiss town of Grenchen, where it remains today, the independent brand has a long history of supplying watches to space missions, most notably as the official provider to Russian space agency Roscosmos in the 1990s and 2000s. Its recent history has seen a few ups and downs at boardroom level, but since being acquired by new owners and relaunched in 2020, it’s once more on a mission to send its watches out into the inky blackness of space.
“It is the CEO’s stated goal that, when mankind embarks on its first mission to Mars, Fortis watches are on the crew’s wrists”
Specifically, it is CEO Mr Jupp Phillip’s stated goal to ensure that when mankind is ready to embark on its first mission to Mars, Fortis watches are on the crew’s wrists. To that end, the brand is in conversation with multiple space agencies and private spaceflight providers. And it is actively developing and testing watches that can function perfectly in outer space for years on end. Thus far, its extraterrestrial forays have seen it send watches to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere both by rocket and helium balloon, launching from a small site in northern Sweden.
The idea of manufacturing watches for a Mars mission that, at present, is years away from happening – if it happens at all – might seem far-removed from current concerns. But there is a romance about it, and a sense of focused purpose that imbues Fortis’ watches with a distinct identity. The brand has its roots in 20th-century pilots’ watches, and the Flieger collection still shows traces of an aesthetic originally defined by the needs of propellor-driven fighters, but you wouldn’t describe the range as backward-looking. Particularly when you introduce bright turquoise dials and brushed metal textures.
In the Stratoliner, Fortis has a contemporary, elegant take on a pilot’s watch. Its graphic, flat dial eschews the traditional colour scheme of high-vis yellows and oranges in favour of a more subtle blue. But, functionally, the automatic chronograph has everything you need, and the blue detailing still serves a purpose – if you are planning a stratospheric flight, at least, as its markings denote the various stages of ascent.
Last but not least, and as befits any maker of serious, purposeful watches, there is a family of dive watches. The Marinemaster collection comes in 40mm and 44mm versions, both water-resistant to 300m and available on rubber straps in a variety of tropical colours. The larger model includes a helium-release valve for professional saturation divers. It’s a horological feature often dismissed as irrelevant to everyday buyers, but if your main aim is to make watches capable of going to Mars, it’s only reasonable that they should be fully equipped for whatever this planet can throw at them, too.