You’re in the army now: Victorinox Swiss Army Original

If you are here, chances are the first thing that crosses your mind when you hear Swiss or Switzerland, is watches. It is a fact well resistant to any kind of argument, except perhaps when it comes to association with the Swiss Army knife. For me, it could be either. I had my first Swiss Army knife well before I owned my first Swiss watch, so I kinda tend to lean more to the knife side. (If this was a debate broadcast at the national network, you would never see that guy being carried away shouting: Chocolate!!!)

Victorinox Swiss Army Original Khaki Green

Victorinox, the original manufacturer of the Swiss Army knife, had the same dilemma, and they chose the solution not unlike Alexander the Great facing the Gordian knot. They brought the watch to a kinfe fight, so to speak. More plainly, they started producing watches. No, not just implementing watches into their multitasking sharpened tools, but regular wrist watches. You know, the one you wear on your wrist. Wow, that must have come like a big surprise to you! They have been producing (or more accurately, licensing their name to the real watch makers) watches for quite some time now, more than 20 years. In the meantime, Victorinox actually acquired their own watchmakers and more bizarrely, started producing fragrances. That’s right, you read it straight. Now you can wear a genuine Swiss Army fragrance! I would presume the range of those unavoidably masculine perfumes varies from a Gun Metal Brutus to the more intense Fahrenheit Feet. But let us leave those speculations to lucky aroma writers and aficionados And while I’m on one of my random irrelevant tangents again, how come  Swiss Army as a name succeeded in earning such a strong street cred? I mean no disrespect, but those guys haven’t had a war in like, what, 800 years? But hey, they are guarding the pope… Ah, Switzerland… never seizes to amaze me!

Victorinox Swiss Army Original, commando black

Slowly, but surely we meandered somehow to the main subject of this article – Victorinox Swiss Army Original Watch. Back in 1989, Swiss Army presented their first timepiece, you guessed it the Original, and 22 years later we have Original v2.0, fresh for the 21st century. The strange thing is the original Original is not yet discontinued, and you can still find it in stores or online. As for the new Original, it is surprisingly good-looking watch! Those with a keen eyesight might notice the striking similarity it shares with latest Swatch Full Blood collection, mainly in the color department. However, Swatch might learn a thing or two from Swiss Army. Wow, I never thought that last sentence would spawn in my mind in a million years. Victorinox managed to come up with a very clean and yet flexible design able to withstand numerous colors and inevitably different materials. I predict Swiss Army Original Watch a nice and bright future

Victorinox Swiss Army Original, all colors

Available in 4 colors (for now): navy gray, commando black, desert beige or khaki green. All colors look great, green being my favorite. The movement employed is a Swiss Ronda quartz caliber placed inside a 40 mm nylon fiber case with an aluminum bezel. It is water resistant to 100 meters. The brushed steel dial features stencil cut hour indexes and the NATO style straps come in matching colors.
The only drawback could be the price – it will be 325 dollars, a bit too steep for those kind of specs, but hey, when you have a reputation of producing the best pocket silverware for 127 years, you might as well use it

Victorinox Swiss Army Original, navy gray

...and desert beige