Yema Spationaute ISS, 1998

Dealer description — Analog/Shift

Yema’s connection to space travel gives the French brand one of the more interesting stories in tool-watch history. Beginning in the 1980s, the Spationaute line was developed in connection with France’s space program, resulting in watches worn by French astronauts on a number of missions. By the late 1990s, that relationship had produced the Spationaute ISS 5, a distinctly period take on the astronaut’s watch that combines analog timekeeping, a digital display, and a navigational bezel in one wonderfully technical package. This example, Reference L5 006 6, dates to the era of the 1998 Pégase mission. Its deep blue dial is packed with information without losing its strong graphic character, featuring large luminous hour markers, central analog hands, multiple scales, and an LCD display positioned at 6 o’clock. Surrounding everything is a rotating compass bezel graduated in degrees and marked with the four cardinal directions. The combination of blue, white, yellow, and flashes of red gives the watch the unmistakable aesthetic of late-20th-century aerospace equipment. Inside is a Seiko-sourced quartz movement providing its dual analog-digital display, while the case is rated to 100 meters of water resistance. This example is paired with a metal mesh strap and steel pin buckle, which gives the already unusual design an appropriately utilitarian finish. The Spationaute ISS 5 comes from a moment when the future really did look like this: LCD screens, complicated instrument panels, bold graphics, and technology proudly on display. It’s a quirky piece of 1990s French watchmaking with a genuine connection to the space age.