Why Swatch? It’s the watch that saved the Swiss watch industry. An idea by Nicolas G. Hayek that led to the first Swatch in 1983, almost 32 years ago, followed by hundreds of models that by 2006 had sold a total of 333 million watches. The Swatch enabled the survival and subsequent flourishing of brands such as Breguet that came close to disappearance. Today, the Swatch has turned full circle, introducing the Sistem51, which has an automatic movement. Some people say that it gives you the chance to buy an Omega saving €4,000. This is an exaggeration of course, but nonetheless the Sistem51 involved some of the finest watch designers from Swatch Group’s brands, creating an innovative movement providing extraordinary precision and an operational life that could provide yet more surprises for the watch industry.

And so this short article is a tribute to Swatch, with a focus on one of the latest products for Christmas 2014. It’s called Golden Cover, its reference is YCG410G, and it has a gold-coloured dial with zig-zag grey texture, and a gold-finish stainless steel bezel with black hour references. The steel strap has a Milanaise texture showing on the front and sides of the wrist, with rectangular links behind. The case is 40 mm in width, 45 mm in height and 12 mm thick. The quartz movement powers time, date and chronograph functions. A Christmas sparkler at €155, £133.50. Buy online at http://shop.swatch.com/