The Swiss climate neutral company Oris partners with Yusra Mardini, who becomes an Oris Ambassador and the Yusra Mardini Foundation will become the brand's Sustainability Partner.
Yusra Mardini is UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador and now also an Oris Ambassador. All visuals copyright.
“So much still has to change for refugees to increase their chances of beginning new and successful lives. Together with Oris and through the Yusra Mardini Foundation, I’m grateful to have the opportunity to push for that change and to show the world: everyone must be treated equally.” - Yusra Mardini, UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, Founder of Yusra Mardini Foundation and Oris Ambassador.
UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Yusra Mardini is now officially an Oris Ambassador and the Yusra Mardini Foundation will become an Oris Sustainability Partner. Yusra’s story is one of triumph in tragedy. In 2015, she became a refugee of the Syrian civil war, fleeing to Greece by dinghy. When the dinghy’s engine failed, Yusra, her sister Sara and two others who could swim jumped into the water and pushed and pulled the boat to safety. After three hours in the water, they reached the island of Lesbos. Eventually, they were granted asylum in Germany and settled in Berlin.
Only a year later, she competed at the Rio Olympics as a member of the very first Refugee Olympic Team in the 100 m butterfly and 100 m freestyle, qualifying again for the Tokyo Games. Her extraordinary story of determination to realise her dreams in the face of great adversity earned international attention.
In 2017, she was appointed a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador. In 2018, she told her story in the critically acclaimed book ‘Butterfly’, which in 2022 became the Netflix film ‘The Swimmers’. This year, she and her sister Sara were listed in Time 100, an annual list of the most influential people in the world. And in June, she launched the Yusra Mardini Foundation to support UNHCR projects. Hers is a remarkable story of achieving her dreams, in spite of trauma, hardship and loss.
Oris was drawn to Yusra because of our common goals. Like Yusra, Oris is on a mission to bring Change for the Better.
Oris is a climate neutral company and as a company, meaning that Oris is aligned with the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals and back a number of non-profit organisations that share our ambition to deliver them. Oris Change for the Better Days are frequently water-focused, too. These community action events have been taking place all over the world for a number of years. Many have involved cleaning up beaches, rivers and waterways polluted by human-made waste.
“This partnership with Yusra and her foundation brings us real joy,” says Rolf Studer, Oris Co-CEO. “It also makes sense. At Oris, we make watches for world citizens, people who believe we have a common responsibility to look after our world and each other. Yusra epitomises this philosophy and we’re excited to see how our collaboration and shared ambitions bring Change for the Better.”
Yusra will participate in a Geneva Watch Days panel alongside Oris Co-CEO Rolf Studer and a UNHCR
representative on Thursday 31 August at 12pm CET.
This year Oris unveils three new collections at Geneva Watch Days
Oris x Bracenet a special-edition version of the Aquis
Date diver’s watch with a spectacular dial made
of recycled ghost and end-of-life nets.
Introducing the Oris X Bracenet and our new collaboration with the social enterprise Bracenet, which upcycles ‘ghost’ fishing nets into accessories. It’s only recently that awareness of ghost nets has begun to rise, thanks to the vision and efforts of people like Benjamin Wenke and Madeleine von Hohenthal, founders of our new partner, the social enterprise Bracenet.
They became aware of this grim phenomenon while diving off the coast of Tanzania in 2015 and
determined to do something about it. They began making bracelets out of upcycled ghost nets,
and Bracenet was born. Today, the company makes a catalogue of products and accessories
that transform this potentially life-threatening waste product into something beautiful that also
makes a statement: change must come.
Making these kaleidoscopic dials involves taking small green, blue and white offcuts and gently
warming them until they melt into the raw material. As they cool, they harden into a thin
sheet of material. This is then cut to size, planed, and sanded down until it’s just 0.3mm thick. The
material contains no additives, fillers or glues. No two dials are the same. There’ll be two stainless steel versions of the watch, one with a 43.50 mm case and a second with a 36.50 mm case. Both have automatic mechanical movements and uni-directional rotating bezels, and are water-resistant to 30
bar (300 metres). More importantly, both are symbols of the change we want to see. A million tonnes of
fishing nets enter the oceans a year. They keep fishing for 400-600 years.
Scientists believe the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), an area of plastic waste drifting between Hawaii and California, is four-and-a-half times the size of Germany. That figure was calculated by the environmental engineering organisation The Ocean Cleanup, which also estimates that 46 per cent of the GPGP is made up of fishing nets that have been lost or discarded. This is particularly serious
because while they may no longer be in use, these ‘ghost’ fishing nets still catch and kill
marine life as they hover in the water.
Experts estimate that up to a million tonnes of fishing nets enter the oceans every year, and that
a ghost net will keep fishing for 400-600 years.
With AquisPro 4000m Oris is going deeper than ever before
Oris unveils its most water-resistant diver’s watch ever created with a titanium case that can withstand pressures up to 400 bar (equivalent to 4,000 metres depth). It’s also loaded with Oris-patented technology, including the Rotation Safety System bezel, designed by Oris in collaboration with professional divers to lock the bezel in place, and Oris security folding clasp extension system, which means the strap can be easily adjusted for length while the watch is being worn. It’s also powered by Oris Calibre 400, our high-performance automatic mechanical movement, which offers a five-day power reserve, elevated anti-magnetism, better than chronometer accuracy and 10-year recommended service intervals and a 10-year warranty with registration to MyOris. It’s finished with a blue gradient dial decorated with a wave pattern, a blue ceramic bezel insert with a minutes scale for timing dives, and a blue rubber strap.
The last but not the least is purest pleasure. Two new models to one of the brand's most loved lines, the Artelier. In keeping with Oris’s visual codes, the Artelier S’s form is motivated by only what is necessary. The smooth, round, 38 mm stainless steel case has been carefully designed to deliver comfort and practicality; the lugs flow elegantly away from the case into a leather strap; the hands are gently tapered and filled with a filigree-thin line of lume; and the hour and minute markers are cut tight to the dial’s
outer edge so that they’re legible while never feeling intrusive.
Speaking of the dial, there are two options; one in a deep black, and a second in a mature, forest green, a subtle nod to our Swiss home in the verdant Waldenburg Valley. Inside the Artelier S is a Swiss Made mechanical movement, in this case the automatic calibre Oris 733, wound by the motion of our signature Red Rotor and visible through an exhibition case back. Simple, elegant, classic, pure. This is the story of
the ageless Artelier S.
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