For almost three years, the Mido Ocean Star Tribute Gradient has been on my wrist nearly every day, and it wasn’t even the plan.
Mido wasn’t sold in India, and as far as I know it still isn’t, so I asked a friend visiting Dubai to pick one up for me. The original choice was the Hamilton Khaki Field Murph in 38mm. The one in Interstellar is the original 42mm, which Matthew McConaughey wears in the film. Before Cooper leaves, he gives his daughter Murph a matching watch, and later he uses its seconds hand to send her data in Morse code. Hamilton’s version has “Eureka” written in Morse code on the seconds hand. It was popular, but people were reluctant to buy a 42mm watch, so Hamilton brought out a 38mm version, and it was much better received. Sometimes companies do listen to their customers.
The 38mm was sold out. The store told my friend they could have one in within two days if we paid a deposit, but I didn’t want him doing extra work on his trip for my watch, so I asked whether they carried Mido. The Ocean Star was already my backup. I just wasn’t sure of the colour. I picked it from Mido’s website, a grey gradient. It’s an uncommon colour for a dial, and I’d never owned a grey one before. Looking back, it was the right call.
My friend and his wife lived in the same society as me, so the day after they got back, he came over with the bag. The watch came in a big box, which is still somewhere in my almirah, and in person it looked much better than in the photos on the website. The grey gets darker towards the edge of the dial, and the seconds hand is orange, an odd combination that works far better than it should. I’ve never changed the strap either. It came on rubber, and unlike the rubber strap on my Tissot Seastar, which I swapped for leather, this one I actually like.
The 40.5mm case sits well on my wrist. It manages to feel vintage and modern at the same time, and the gradient shifts with the light.
It’s also the watch I ride with. It came with me to Zanskar in 2024, and most of my rides on the Street Triple have been with the Mido. It sits lower on the wrist than the Seastar and slips easily under my gloves and jacket.
About two years ago, on a slow day at work, I wrapped up early and went out for a short ride. I took a photo of the Mido with the bike behind it and posted it on r/Watches, asking other riders what they wore. “This watch may be a desk diver,” I wrote, “but it definitely tags along for some long rides.” Most of the replies were Casios, an F-91W, an A168 and a cheap one with an LED light button, worn because they fit between a jacket and gloves and, as one rider put it, “I don’t care if it gets scratched or damaged in a crash because it’s cheap.” At the other end, someone rode with a Pelagos 39, a Reverso or a Parmigiani GMT, protected by gauntlets that went over his wrist. And one rider had a Shield dive watch that broke his wrist in a wreck, “but it still works!” He was fine. “All the gear, all the time,” he said.
I also own a Tissot Seastar Powermatic 80, and I like its weight more. It’s chunkier, and I can feel it on my wrist. In every other way I prefer the Mido: how it sits, the black strap against the grey dial, that dash of orange. It isn’t perfect. The lume is weak, and the rotating bezel is much stiffer to turn than the Seastar’s. Even so, when I reach for a diver, it’s almost always the Mido.
Mido doesn’t get much love, but lately it has been on a roll, with a few good releases, most notably the Multifort. If Mido ever comes to India, the one I have my eye on is the Multifort Chronograph. I’m travelling to Sydney in November, and they have a store there, so I might drop in to see how it looks on the wrist. Just to look, of course.
