First a confession: I own more MoonSwatches than I care to admit. Never let it be said that WIRED doesn’t put its money where its mouth is when it comes to recommending products—Swatch has skillfully extracted a significant amount of cash from me, all in $285 increments. This was likely the Swiss company’s sly plan from the start: to draw us in and gently get watch fans hooked. It’s the horological equivalent of boiling a frog. And it’s worked—Swatch has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars from MoonSwatch sales.
While I’ve been a fan of the Omega X Swatch collaboration since we first reported on how this money-making venture came to be, I’ve never been fond of the iterative Moonshine Gold versions. Each design features a sliver of Omega’s exclusive 18K pale yellow gold alloy used in slightly different ways, which felt almost cynical—a tactic to milk the MoonSwatch superfans on their quest to complete the collection.
A hidden Snoopy message on the Cold Moon’s dial is revealed under UV light.
Photograph: Courtesy of Swatch
The MoonSwatch comes with a rubber strap upgrade over the original launch models.
Photograph: Courtesy of Swatch
Now, just when I thought I was done with MoonSwatch—having gone as far as upgrading all of mine with official $45 color-matching rubber straps—Swatch has reeled me in again with a Moonshine Gold model: the new MoonSwatch Mission To Earthphase Moonshine Gold Cold Moon.
Clumsy name aside, this version combines the all-white 2024 Snoopy model (WIRED’s top pick from the entire collection) with the Earthphase MoonSwatches, upgrading the original strap to a superior white and blue Swatch rubber velcro one. Aesthetically, it’s definitely a win, but that’s not the Cold Moon’s main selling point.
On each $450 Cold Moon MoonSwatch, a snowflake is lasered onto its Moonshine Gold moon phase indicator—and just like a real snowflake, Swatch claims each one will be entirely unique. Given the sheer volume of MoonSwatches Swatch produces yearly, that’s no small feat.
The unique golden snowflakes appear on the moon phase dial of the Cold Moon.
Photograph: Courtesy of Swatch
