The Black Snoopy MoonSwatch Arrives In Time For The New Moon

We all went bonkers all over again with MoonSwatch fever when the Mission to Moonphase, aka the Snoopy MoonSwatch, arrived just 10 (10!) days ago. We knew it was coming; we just didn’t know when. And then it came, and then people lined up to get them, and then we let out a sigh of relief. We could look forward to Watches & Wonders and maybe hope to run into someone wearing the white Snoopy around the show. But no, that would be too easy. Because Swatch very quickly teased us yet again, this time with an overt animation foreshadowing a black variant of the Mission to Moonphase. And then it further teased a launch date: April 8. Well, folks, it ain’t April 8, and yet we now know exactly what the black colorway of the Omega Snoopy MoonSwatch – called the Mission to Moonphase New Moon – looks like.

I mean, we could have easily guessed that this was how it would turn out in terms of the overall design – friends of ours made renders of it even. But it’s still cool to see the finished product. And that’s because almost everyone I know showered the white iteration with near-universal praise. Some people who never really got on the MoonSwatch bandwagon were magnetically drawn to that one in a big way. I loved it, too, but I also have a soft spot for all things MoonSwatch.

But as much as I loved the white one, I’m now torn because this one looks pretty damn cool. It immediately reminds me of how I felt when Swatch surprise launched the Blancpain x Swatch Scuba Fifty Ocean of Storms earlier this year in the black colorway that everyone wished had been created at the collection’s initial announcement. Black bioceramic just looks good, especially when it houses an iconic design like that of the Speedmaster and is adorned with an iconic cartoon character like that of Omega Snoopy MoonSwatch.

Of course, there are literally only so many words I can write about this one, considering I wrote basically this exact article, just in a different color, approximately two weeks ago. Everything you love about the white variation of the new Snoopy collection (does two constitute a collection?) is effectively inverted on this watch.

The dial is a matte black and matches the case. The markers and surrounds are all done in a stark white, which matches the hands, and the lume plots are done in a very cool black color that almost makes them look empty – as if the luminous material crumbled and fell off (it didn’t). That lume glows green on the hands and markers, but when it comes to the moon phase disc at the upper right portion of the dial, the crescent moons and the stars all glow in blue, as does the secret message “I can’t sleep without a night light!”

If you’re after my personal opinion, which may be contrary to popular opinion, in the mere minutes I have worked through the above paragraphs, I have decided that I really like the execution of this new black edition. Do I like it enough to camp out in a tent outside of a Swatch boutique? Probably not, but also I don’t really like camping, and I don’t own a tent. But that’s the beauty of these back-to-back releases: They’re not limited. Now, like the Neptune blue MoonSwatch, they will likely be hard to come by, but they’ll be around.

As MoonSwatch history has shown us, scarcity has never stopped the fanbase from lining up for blocks in the thousands to get their fix on launch day. And I am certain we will see that happen again for this Mission to the Moonphase New Moon edition. It will hit Swatch stores promptly on April 8, and the rule of the game at every Swatch boutique is simple: Only one Omega Snoopy MoonSwatch per customer. Oh and since April 8 is a mere one day before W&W, I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for one of these on the convention floor. And now, I’m off to Geneva.