Storm Hemisphere

I think it's now 20 years exactly since I got my first Storm watch, so I thought I'd blog a Storm to commemorate that event.

Today's Storm watch is also a vintage model and is called the Hemisphere. It is one of the featured watches on the vintage watch section of the Storm website so I know this came out in 1997.

The back of the watch also hints that this is a vintage Storm as it refers to Sun 99 Ltd which was the original company of the brand co-founder and chief designer Steve Sun. Steve and his wife started Storm in 1989 to produce fashionable but affordable watches to encourage people to own several watches to match their outfits (-which I seem to have taken to an extreme). They started with a single store in London, but the popularity of the brand grew and now has a global presence.

The Hemisphere watch has the typical Storm image with plenty of curved brushed steel and glass. The dial has a donut appearance with the hands shown in a clear ring around a silver centre. The centre is actually part of the dial and is a silver hemisphere with the Storm name on which rotates with the seconds. The glass gives the watch an interesting optical effect as it is a thick dome with a flat centre. The case is unusually made of brass which has been coated in a later of silver metal and there is a stainless steel back. The back also says this is a registered design with the number 1374971.

The strap is also a typical Storm design (reg no 2016064) with the solid curved first section with the raised centre and Y-shaped links.