Founded in 1947 in La Chaux-de-fonds, Switzerland, Catena has released only a handful of waches in half a century, but there was one that clearly stood out above the rest. In 1972, during the heyday of all things space age, the Spaceman watch with an avant-garde design became one of the signature timepieces of that era.
La Chaux-de-fonds is a significant watchmaking area in the Jura Valley in Switzerland, with over half of the most established Swiss watch brands setting up manufacturing facilities there, including Breitling, Tag Heuer and Patek Philippe. La Neuveville, a little town just 25 miles from La Chaux-de-fonds, was where Willy Lebet founded Catena in 1947 and it remains the brand’s location to this day. In 1959, Willy Lebet passed the business to his son Claude Lebet, who embarked on another stage of the brand’s development. A new company chief brought a new working style to the company, and young Claude Lebet was very much influenced by the United States’ landing on the moon as well as the space age vibe in general. He took a new step and employed industrial designers outside of the watchmaking industry to design a futuristic watch with hi-tech style. at that time, even the lunar landing Omega Speedmaster Professional followed the mainstream chronograph designs from the 1950s. You can imagine the space capsule-like Catena Spaceman was a surprise to the market.
40-odd years later, with NASA’s Mars mission and Elon Musk’s Space X programme, we are experiencing another wave of space-interest. Catena is introducing a new Spaceman collection named SwisSpace. The new watch series gets rid of the smooth and circular design and picks up the shape of an irregular spaceship instead. The upper part of the case is tilted and angular, obviously influenced by 21st Century supercars, while the lower portion of the case keeps the retro space age style. It is semi-circular in shape and features three rotating discs on the dial that tell the hour, the minute and the second respectively. The most unique feature is probably the crown, which is set at the top of the watch at 12 o’clock. Not only does it give a strong visual impact, it also does not affect the wrist movements of the wearer. The case of SwisSpace is crafted with PVD-treated polished black 316 stainless steel. The watch is available in red, orange, yellow, gold and black, and each comes with plating components and leather strap of the same shade. Each colour is limited to 999 pieces and numbered individually. The Swiss made automatic mechanical movement with 36 hours of power reserve can be appreciated via the fan-shaped sapphire window on the case back.
