Calling all Swatchheads: The Swatch Newseum, a traveling exhibit of trendy timepieces, opens Friday at Marshall Field`s Water Tower Place store.
Chicago marks the 22nd stop on a 40-plus city tour, says Amy-Beth Chamberlin, Newseum project supervisor and self-proclaimed Swatch roadie. Among the 600 different Swatch watch styles that will be on display in the Newseum:
-Four models by the late pop artist Keith Haring. Sold for $50 when produced in 1986, the watches today are valued at $2,500 each.
-The ”Hollywood Dreams” motif, created for Christmas 1990. It`s a glitzy rhinestone-encrusted watch that originally sold for $100 and is now worth about $2,000.
It`s a busy year for Swatch. The Switzerland-based firm celebrates its 10-year anniversary this fall as well as the production of 100 million watches. As a commemorative gesture, Swatch has revived some of its older designs, offering them to consumers for $40 to $50 exclusively at the Newseum. Among styles, the first of which came out in 1983, are the ”Swatchetables”
featuring chili peppers, cucumbers and a bacon-and-eggs motifs.
Don`t let time slip by. On Sept. 6, the Newseum packs up its timepieces and moves on to Atlanta.
