For its second collaboration with Zodiac, American fashion brand Rowing Blazers has created a limited-edition version of the Super Sea Wolf World Time GMT. While the original collaboration model between these two brands was based upon the Super Sea Wolf dive watch and drew its inspiration from the famous Harry’s New York Bar in Paris, the new Zodiac x Rowing Blazers Super Sea Wolf World Time GMT watch uses the world timer version of the Sea Wolf as its foundation, and it represents a subtle nod to a fictitious watch that was prominently featured in the 1983 comedy Trading Places.
Before we get into the watch itself, it’s worth briefly explaining the Trading Places inspiration behind it. In the film, wealthy business executive Louis Winthorpe III (played by Dan Aykroyd) has swapped places with street hustler Billy Ray Valentine (portrayed by Eddie Murphy), and while down on his luck, he attempts to sell his fancy watch at a pawn shop in Philadelphia, where the owner believes the timepiece is stolen and offers him a lowly fifty bucks for it. While trying to reason with the shop owner for more money, we get this famous quote from Aykroyd’s character that rather passionately describes his wristwatch.
“This is a Rochefoucauld, the thinnest water-resistant watch in the world. Singularly unique, sculptured in design, hand-crafted in Switzerland, and water resistant to three atmospheres. This is the sports watch of the 1980s. Six thousand, nine hundred and fifty-five dollars retail! It tells time simultaneously in Monte Carlo, Beverly Hills, London, Paris, Rome, and Gstaad!”
Aside from being the subject of an April Fool’s joke and a topic of discussion on various watch-spotting forums, the Rochefoucauld timepiece that is so prominently featured in the film Trading Places (along with the Rochefoucauld watch brand itself), never actually existed, and they were simply fictional creations like the rest of the film. Rowing Blazers Founder Jack Carlson and vintage watch dealer Eric Wind (who has helped design previous Rowing Blazers collaboration models) often joked about creating a real-life Rochefoucauld watch like the one featured in the film, but rather than trying to create the exact timepiece that is described in the movie, the new Zodiac x Rowing Blazers Super Sea Wolf World Time GMT simply uses it as its inspiration and subtly references the film by the city names that appear on its world-time bezel.
Along with being bright blue (instead of black or red like on the standard-production versions of the model), the bezel insert fitted to the new limited-edition Zodiac x Rowing Blazers Super Sea Wolf World Time GMT also features all of the different city names mentioned by Aykroyd’s character in the film, so that the watch can indeed simultaneously tell the time in “Monte Carlo, Beverly Hills, London, Paris, Rome, and Gstaad.” Four of these cities are located within the same time zone, which created a slight challenge for the brand when it came to fitting them all on the bezel, and you also get Philadelphia as one of the cities, since it serves as the setting of the film. Realistically speaking, any watch capable of simultaneously displaying three or more time zones will be able to give you the time in Monte Carlo, Beverly Hills, London, Paris, Rome, and Gstaad, although the fact that these names are actually printed on the bezel insert serves a fun touch and a subtle nod to the 1980s movie that serves as its inspiration.
Aside from its bezel insert, the dial is also different on the new Zodiac x Rowing Blazers Super Sea Wolf World Time GMT compared to what you will find on the standard-production world timer models. Rather than being silver or gray like its core-collection siblings, the dial fitted to this new collaboration model is black with a white 24-hour scale surrounding its perimeter, and it features the Rowing Blazers logo printed below the hands. Instead of being fitted with a vintage-style three-link bracelet like the standard Super Sea Wolf World Time GMT models, the new Rowing Blazers version receives the five-link stainless steel bracelet that is typically found on Zodiac’s Super Sea Wolf divers, and this new limited-edition model also comes with an additional fabric strap that features Rowing Blazers’s signature zig-zag pattern in black and white.
From a materials and construction standpoint, the new limited-edition Zodiac x Rowing Blazers Super Sea Wolf World Time GMT is identical to the standard-production model, which means that it features a stainless steel case that measures 40mm in diameter by 13.6mm thick, with a domed sapphire crystal above its dial, a solid screw-down caseback, and a signed winding crown at the 3 o’clock location that also screws down to the middle case to help guarantee its 200 meters of water resistance. Clearly, this is not the “thinnest water-resistant watch in the world” like the fictional Rochefoucauld timepiece, although you do get quite a bit more water resistance compared to the “three atmospheres” (30 meters) that are offered by Aykroyd’s character’s watch in the film.
One other detail worth mentioning about the new limited-edition Zodiac x Rowing Blazers Super Sea Wolf World Time GMT is that the press release for the watch states that it is powered by the Swiss STP7-20 automatic movement, which is different from the Soprod C125 that you will find inside the brand’s other GMT watches. As part of the greater Fossil Group umbrella of companies, Zodiac has continuously been updating its watch collections to feature Swiss-made calibers that are produced by fellow Fossil Group-owned movement manufacturer STP (Swiss Technology Production). At the time of writing, little information exists on the Swiss STP7-20 movement, although based on previous Zodiac watch releases, I think I have a pretty good idea of what we have inside this latest Rowing Blazers collaboration.
Similar to how Zodiac chose the Ariel Adams-designed Super Sea Wolf Pineapple Dream watch to debut the updated STP1-21 movement that has a silicon hairspring, I would suspect that the new Zodiac x Rowing Blazers Super Sea Wolf World Time GMT has been chosen to debut the new STP7-20 GMT movement. While details are minimal on this particular caliber, I would assume that the STP7-20 offers similar specs to its Soprod/ETA/Sellita counterparts with an operating frequency of 28,800vph (4 Hz) and a power reserve of somewhere in the neighborhood of 42 hours. While this collaboration model appears to be the first time that Zodiac has used this particular caliber, I wouldn’t be surprised if we ultimately see it start to make its way into the brand’s other GMT watches in the near future.
The new Zodiac x Rowing Blazers Super Sea Wolf World Time GMT will be produced as a limited edition of just 282 examples, and it will be accompanied by an official retail price of $2,195 USD, which makes it slightly more expensive than the standard-production world timer models, although it is a fraction of the price of the fictional Rochefoucauld watch from Trading Places. Like every other Rowing Blazers collaboration, I’m sure that the 282 examples of this limited-edition version of the Super Sea Wolf World Time GMT will be quickly claimed by collectors, and while it might not be the “thinnest water-resistant watch in the world” like the Rochefoucauld timepiece from the famous 1980s movie, you do get get exponentially more water resistance, along with the ability to simultaneously tell the time in Monte Carlo, Beverly Hills, London, Paris, Rome, and Gstaad. For more information on the Zodiac x Rowing Blazers Super Sea Wolf World Time GMT watch, please visit either the Rowing Blazers’ website or Zodiac’s website.