Thursday, July 19, 2012


RJ-ROMAIN JEROME SPACE INVADERS®1 TAKE OVER COLETTE IN PARIS!



After a first raid last year, the SPACE INVADERS® have once again landed our daily watchmaking lives. In cooperation with TAITO Corporation, RJ-Romain Jerome serves as a willing accomplice in this new invasion. First target: colette, in Paris. On that occasion, the pixelated figures have put on the emblematic blue color of the store for a limited edition of eight pieces, only available in the trendy boutique.

An authentic homage to late 20th century pop culture, the SPACE INVADERS watches are true generational icons. Since their first landing on our planet in 1978, the SPACE INVADERS have colonised our world to the point of imprinting their subliminal image on the collective unconscious of millions of human beings for whom age has proved the only cure for their juvenile game dependency.

Manuel Emch, CEO of RJ-Romain Jerome, is himself a former game addict from the generation that first went wild about SPACE INVADERS, the game that has become a legend for all those who grew up in the 1980s: it was the first electronic game, the first "Killer Application" on a fixed console (arcade cabinet). The SPACE INVADERS craze sparked a shortage of 100-yen coins when the game was first launched in Japan. SPACE INVADERS and its pixel creatures were the first ever iconic form of entertainment: thousands of hours of TV footage and hundreds of cultural exhibitions have been devoted to this generational legend.

Having inherited the highly distinctive case of the Moon Invader collection (a round shape inside a cambered 46 mm square), the SPACE INVADERS watches have kept the same steel coalesced with fragments of Apollo 11. The four functional ball-and-socket joints on the corners of the case are shaped like the legs of the lunar landing modules of the American lunar missions. These extremely sophisticated components mounted on axles anchored in the case hold the lugs of the rubber straps and enable the watch to adjust to all kinds of wrist sizes.

Embodying another tangible token of the space age symbolised by the SPACE INVADERS collection, a dedicated plate made of Moon SilverRJ – a silver alloy with an extremely low oxidation rate incorporating moon rocks – appears on the stellar-patterned back of the watch and reproduces the lunar surface.

The dial is very complex and consists of three layers: the first two are beadblasted and the "straight graining" gives a pixelated aspect to the third layer. Measuring around 3.5 mm each, the SPACE INVADERS are meticulously machined one by one, applied by hand and lacquered in various colours. These pixel invaders are a playful nod that transforms watches into inspired "talking pieces" capable of creating a distinct sense of affinity with those who wear them, and who revel in the chance to thumb their noses at classic watchmaking conventions.

The SPACE INVADERS are available in four other colours (red, green, purple and yellow) and have started their incursion in all RJ-Romain Jerome points of sale worldwide. Limited editions of eight pieces per colour, five new colourful legends have made their entrance at RJ-Romain Jerome…

ABOUT TAITO CORPORATION

TAITO Corporation (TAITO) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. With headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, TAITO operates core businesses such as game arcade operations, coin-operated game machines, and mobile phone content services. A seminal part of gaming history, TAITO caused a worldwide sensation with its arcade legend, SPACE INVADERS®, and developed such fan favorites as PUZZLE BOBBLE® (BUST-A-MOVE®) and ARKANOID®. Today, TAITO continues to thrill game lovers of all generations by offering both classic and new family-oriented titles on the latest gaming platforms. TAITO delivers a wide range of entertainment experiences with the goal of providing consumers with fresh surprises and new discoveries. 

ABOUT SPACE INVADERS®

Planned, developed, and released by TAITO Corporation (TAITO), the 1978 arcade game SPACE INVADERS® became an instant global phenomenon. Today, its iconic characters frequently appear both in licensed projects worldwide and as TAITO’s corporate mascots.

TAITO is the exclusive owner of the global intellectual property rights, including copyrights and trademarks, for SPACE INVADERS and its characters, and takes an active role regarding new SPACE INVADERS-related enterprises.

ABOUT RJ-ROMAIN JEROME

Air, earth, sea: RJ-Romain Jerome offers the raw energy of imagination to those who are capable of nurturing their most secret dreams. Born at the dawn of the 3rd millennium, RJ-Romain Jerome creates the watches of the new horological era. The magic of the moon, the power of lava, and underwater mysteries are the poetic driving forces behind this creative explosion.

Whether through recovering steel from the Titanic or from the Apollo 11 space shuttle, mingling silver with moon dust or sculpting volcano lava, RJ-Romain Jerome asserts its iconoclastic spirit and electrifies tradition by celebrating contemporary legends. Its approach is characterised by a blend of raw character and elaborate refinement, drawing as much on the roar of an erupting volcano as on the writings of H.G. Wells.

A taste for adventure, an all-conquering spirit and visionary avant-gardism merge with the realm of the imagination in the "Titanic-DNA", "Moon Dust-DNA" and "Eyjafjallajökull-DNA" collections. These three worlds exalt contemporary horizons through a resolutely masculine and contemporary touch. From the ocean depths to the immensity of space, from incandescent lava to age-old minerals, the RJ-Romain Jerome collections are far more than just astonishing watches: they define a new era in watchmaking.

Offering every man a chance to explore a dreamlike new dimension, they also embody the values of their times: a sense of distinctiveness, a need for speed, and a spectacular yet discreetly sophisticated aura of virility.

Air, earth and sea: it is now up to everyone to find his own universe, and to give substance to his dream and to his own vision of Time.


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