The 70s – Star Wars, bell-bottoms & ABBA

After the post-war years were mainly devoted to reconstruction, political reorganisation and economic upswing, the 60s and 70s started to see the greener side of the grass. What the hippie and '68 movements had set in motion at the end of the 1960s bore fruit with the dawn of the new decade: Life was more exuberant, free and self-determined. This was also reflected in the fashion of the 70s with hippie looks and floral patterns, bell-bottoms, platform shoes and shrill colors conquering the wardrobes.

The legendary disco look did not come about by chance: Whilst festivals shaped the 60s, discos moved into the focus of the 70s – the famous Studio 54 in New York was especially popular with young people. In 1972, the Swedish band ABBA was founded, Boney M only two years later. Songs like Dancing Queen, Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! and Daddy Cool created a lively atmosphere in the dazzling discos. And the legendary dance film Saturday Night Fever (1977) with John Travolta reflects the disco atmosphere like no other. In 2010, Saturday Night Fever was included in the National Film Registry as a US film worthy of preservation.

In addition to disco music, the genres rock and punk were on the rise: bands like Queen, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd celebrated their musical peak in the 70s.

The first moon landing on July 21, 1969 was one of the most significant events in the history of mankind and generated unimaginable ratings – the Apollo 11 mission was one of the greatest TV events of all time. No wonder that the "Space Age" experienced a revival in the 1970s: In 1979, the first Star Wars film War of the Stars was released, as well as the first part of the film series Alien (Alien – The Eerie Being from a Foreign World).

Even the British secret agent James Bond could not escape the omnipresent science fiction events: The film Moonraker (1979) completely adapted the space age theme. By the way, in this film our favourite secret agent does not wear a mechanical watch – in the first films Sean Connery wears a Rolex Submariner – but a Seiko M354 Memory Bank Calendar with digital display.

The choice of the wristwatch for James Bond is not surprising when you take a look at the watch world in the 70s. During this decade, the Swiss watch industry was in the midst of the quartz crisis, which had been unstoppable since the 1960s. Although there had already been experiments with battery-powered watches in the 1920s, it would be several decades before microelectronics were ready for the market.

In the 1960s, Swiss watches had a market share of more than 50 per cent - by 1978 it was only 24 per cent with Japan and Hong Kong now occupying the top two places. Around two thirds of jobs in the Swiss watch industry were lost.

Quartz watches were more in vogue than ever, so the Swiss watch industry had to find new ways to survive in the crisis that threatened its existence.

One of these new ways was the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak. Audemars Piguet realised as early as 1971 that a groundbreaking innovation was needed to avoid going under as a result of the quartz crisis. For this reason, the then Audemars CEO Georges Golay consulted designer legend Gérald Genta and asked him to design a steel watch. The very next day, the Swiss watch designer submitted the design - and the Royal Oak was born. The first Royal Oak (Ref. 5402) was presented in 1972 and was groundbreaking: until then, the mechanical watch world had mainly known dress watches made of precious metal. Tool Watches such as the Rolex Submariner, launched in 1953, were tools in the truest sense of the word, as diving computers did not exist at that time.

Four years later, Patek Philippe launched the Nautilus on the market: In 1976, Patek Philippe presented the first reference of the Nautilus - the Ref. 3700, also designed by Gérald Genta, who needed no more than five minutes to complete the 1974 design.

Both watches were controversial, but hit the mark like a bomb. The rather conservative clientele of the two traditional manufacturers appreciated Audemars Piguet and Patek Philippe for their classic small diameter dress watches. The stainless steel watches with integral bracelets and large diameters of 39 millimeters (Royal Oak) and 42 millimeters (Nautilus) made many buyers skeptical, but ultimately they were able to assert themselves and are now among the greatest watch legends of all time.

Both the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak and the Patek Philippe Nautilus have been in continuous production since their presentation in the 1970s. In the meantime, both manufactures have expanded their portfolio with some more contemporary and sophisticated models, such as the Nautilus Travel Time (Ref. 5990) or the larger Royal Oak Offshore. However, with the Royal Oak Ref. 15202 and the Nautilus Ref. 5711, both manufacturers still produce modern models of the original versions. Both have slightly larger diameters and current calibres, but otherwise almost completely resemble their historical models. This is proof of how trend-setting the designs of the time were - and that the simplest designs are often the most successful.

The early years of IWC Da Vinci also fall predominantly into the 1970s: First presented in 1969, the original reference of the Da Vinci was a quartz model with integral bracelet (Ref. 3501), which in terms of design is reminiscent of the classic Ingenieur models (also designed by Gérald Genta) from IWC. The design of the Ur-Da-Vinci fully reflects the spirit of the 1970s.

In 1985, the Da Vinci received a comprehensive redesign that continues to pave the way forward today. Since then, the watch has been known for its classic, round appearance and the characteristic strap lugs. IWC launched a reminiscence of the original Da Vinci in the late 2000s with the Ref. IW546101: Both the dial and the case are reminiscent of the Ref. 3501.

The Chopard Happy Diamonds was presented to the world public in 1976 and is one of the most famous designs of the Chopard brand. The Happy Diamonds of the 1979s had freely moving diamonds on the dial. In the meantime, Chopard has further developed the watch and there are moving diamonds between two sapphire crystals on the front.

The Omega Seamaster Ploprof 600 was introduced in February 1971. With a diving depth of up to 600 meters, this diver's watch was far ahead of its time. Not only because of its eccentric, purpose-built design with its already opulent diameter of 55 millimetres, but also because of its impressive diving depth, the watch has always appealed to predominantly professional divers.

In 2009, Omega presented the Ploprof 1200, the new edition of the watch. The diving depth is now 1200 metres and the calibre used is a modern Co-Axial calibre. Otherwise, the Ploprof 1200 is the spitting image of its historical predecessor. Hardly any other watch is as striking as the Omega Seamaster Ploprof.