This Go-To Affordable Japanese Brand’s New Travel-Ready Dive Watch Is Dripping with Retro Glam

While sitting outside the Big Three Japanese watchmakers of Seiko, Citizen and Casio, Orient nevertheless has its fans.

The brand — which for the past 16 years has had the same parent company as Seiko but operates independently — has long been a favorite of enthusiasts first getting into the hobby, thanks to its focus on mechanical watchmaking and its entry-level pricing.

Orient has been doing things its way for 75 years now, and the brand has been celebrating throughout 2025 by launching a number of special-edition models. Its latest might just be its coolest yet, as Orient has taken its retro-tastic World Map diver and given it a glam makeover that’s somehow even more befitting of its mid-century inspiration.

Mapped out

Orient

The original Orient World Map from 1969 was really a dive watch, but with its dive-time bezel swapped out for a 24-hour bezel. A multicolored and heavily stylized world map was printed on the dial and divided into 24 sections, so that when you rotated the bezel to align the current time with the section of the map where you were located, you could effectively read the time anywhere in the world at a glance.

It wasn’t a worldtimer, because there was no extra mechanical complication involved to track multiple time zones. Instead, it was a fun and attractive way to add a unique feature to a diver.

Orient first brought the World Map back in 2021 as a revival piece with a handful of new versions, and this 75th-Anniversary edition takes inspiration from a few of those and other past Orient models to create something familiar yet new.

Gnomon Watches

As before, the World Map 75th Anniversary is basically a dive watch, with a robust depth rating of 200m. It features the same 43.5mm x 13.9mm polished cushion case in stainless steel, along with a domed mineral crystal and a bidirectional inner rotating 24-hour bezel.

The dial is the real star here, though, as Orient recreated the original colored map from 1969. I absolutely love the design of this map, with its vibrant use of color and unique bullseye motif. It’s decidedly modern in its design and something that could only have come from that movement’s mid-century heyday. It reminds me of a map that would’ve appeared in a villain’s lair in one of Sean Connery’s Bond movies.

The dial features applied dot hour markers and a broad set of faceted sword hands, along with a framed day-date window at 3:00. The hands are lumed, and while there’s no lume on the dial, there are 12 indices lumed on the inner bezel — meaning if you want to read the time in the dark, you’ll need to make sure the bezel is aligned with the 12 marker at the top. That’s easy enough to do, since it’s the only marker with double bars.

Orient

Orient brought back this same original multicolor dial on one of the 2021 World Map divers, but this time around, the brand has swapped out its (often-maligned) modern logo for the cursive logo the brand used in the 1950s. It’s a small change but makes a big improvement, in my opinion.

The bracelet is the same one found on the 2021 revival, and is a five-link style that looks like it has seven links. It features a mix of polished and brushed finishes and secures with a dual push-button folding clasp. Visually, it somewhat resembles the iconic “tank tread” bracelet of the Omega Seamaster Diver 300M.

The last major change that makes this watch extra special is its use of yellow gold plating on the fluted bezel and twin crowns. Previously seen on a blander, white-dial 2021 World Map model, the gold adds a glam element to the model that pairs perfectly with the colorful dial, ratcheting up the retro vibes even higher.

Orient

Powering the watch, as with most Orients, is an in-house mechanical movement. The Calibre F6922 is an automatic with 22 jewels and a hacking function, along with a power reserve of 40 hours. The movement is hidden behind a solid caseback engraved with the limited-edition number and “Orient Since 1950 75th Anniversary” in the same cursive as the 1950s logo on the dial.

Pricing and availability

Orient has limited production of the World Map 75th Anniversary to 1,500 examples, with 500 reserved for Japan and the other 1,000 to be shared among the rest of the world. As far as limited editions go, that’s pretty plentiful.

It’s unclear if Orient will sell the watch directly in the U.S. — it went on sale today, but is absent from the brand’s American retail website. However, it is available from Singapore-based Gnomon Watches, which is an authorized dealer that’s shoppable to U.S. customers. There, the watch is priced at a paltry $370 despite its high-end looks.

Hey, what’d you expect? It’s an Orient! It’s not like after 75 years, the brand is suddenly going to start charging a fortune for its watches.

Orient

Orient World Map 75th Anniversary

Specs

Case Size	43.5mm
Movement	Orient Cal. F6922 automatic day-date
Water Resistance	200m

• $370 at Gnomon Watches

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