Great watch wearers

Great watch-wearers

Sigourney Weaver

When you’re trying to kill the universe’s most

terrifying flesh-eating monster, you need a watch you can rely on. A watch that’s not just accurate – thanks to its quartz chronograph movement – but robust enough to withstand the razor-sharp teeth of the perennially hungry/angry Xenomorph.

We are, of course, talking about Seiko’s 7A28-7000, as seen on the wrist of Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in James Cameron’s 1986 film, Aliens. After taking a hypersleep of 57 years, Ripley wakes up, adopts an orphan girl and goes to war against the beasts that devoured her crewmates in the preceding Alien film of 1979.

The Seiko on her wrist is wildly futuristic – an offcentre chronograph with a panel stuck to the side of the case from which the start/stop/reset buttons are placed. The dial is equally striking, with subdials placed inside a ‘smiley’ opening and an orange-black handset that contrasts with the white markings.

It’s a bizarre and beautiful timepiece, which should come as no surprise when you find out who designed it.

In 1983, Seiko commissioned Italian Giorgetto Giugiaro to develop a chronograph timepiece. Giugiaro was the designer behind the DeLorean gull-wing sports car that was notorious for its futuristic looks and less-than-futuristic performance (It would later find fame for its time-travelling abilities in Back To The Future).

The result was the Seiko 7A28-7000 (AKA the ‘Ripley’) – a piece of design every bit as uncompromising as the DeLorean. Powered by Seiko’s Calibre 7A28, the world’s first quartz chronograph movement with analogue dials, Seiko eventually produced 40 variations, including another model – the ‘Bishop’ – that also appeared in Aliens. The futuristic looks of the Seiko 7A28-7000 made it perfect for a film that takes place in 2179.

We first see the watch on Ripley’s wrist around the 47-minute mark as she rescues the orphan girl Newt. It then accompanies her as she seeks to defeat her formidable opponent – a timepiece every bit as iconic as the badass who wears it. The film made the Seiko 7A28-7000 a hit with watch-lovers – so much so that in 2015, the company re-released it in two colourways. Though this time, they omitted the ‘Speedmaster’ logo that had been engraved into the bracelet of the original – seemingly without Omega’s permission. While the Seiko 7A28-7000 is a design classic, it was only when it was worn by Sigourney Weaver (as Ripley) that it became an icon. A perfect example of how celebrity and charisma can elevate products to something else entirely.