The Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean 600M Master Chronometer Chronograph is a luxury version of a supremely practical chronograph. The counter at 3 o’clock combines chronograph minutes and hours into a display that is legible at a glance. All the hands have areas of SuperLuminova, with differentiated colours of luminescence: blue for the hour indices, hour…
The Omega Planet Ocean 600M has a lot of content, accompanied by exceptionally good looks. Its METAS certification includes COSC chronometer certification and betters it, as well as anti-magnetism to fields of up to 15,000 gauss, and waterproofness tested to 600 metres depth. The watch has a helium escape valve, screw-down crown, unidirectional rotating bezel,…
This is a 39.5-mm version of Omega’s existing Planet Ocean collection of diver’s watches, and Omega have marketed the piece as specifically for women. They have also added Switzerland’s most famous product to the name, and their PR photos show the watch apparently diving into a sea of chocolate. It is a reference to the…
This is a really attractive watch, with its carioca colours on the ceramic bezel, the jaunty skeletonized hands with their differentiated SuperLuminova, and the wavy dial decoration, not a reference to the sea but rather to the two-tone paving design of Copacabana’s beachside promenade. The solid caseback is embossed with the Rio 2016 Olympic Games…
The Mido Ocean Star Captain Titanium is not the cheapest entry-level diving watch around, but it has some nice characteristics. With 20 bar/200 metre water resistance it’s perfectly at home underwater, and its bracelet with diver’s extension makes it feasible for use on a wet suit; the rather smooth bezel fluting and the date and…
The Sinn U212 (EZM 16) is a large diving watch, 47 mm in diameter and 14.5 mm thick, with a case and solid caseback entirely made in German Submarine Steel, with satin finish. It has been tested and certified for a range of characteristics, including water resistance (100 bar/1,000 metres), low pressure resistance, shock resistance,…
Camouflage is big in fashion right now, as demonstrated by Versace’s spring/summer 2016 bags. The fashion industry uses anything to make a splash, and so Donatella Versace’s bag is ironic in a Dada way: camouflage, which is designed to help soldiers merge into the background, is used to make the bag and its wearer stand…
The Tutima Glashütte M2 Seven Seas, presented at Baselworld 2016, is a very attractive diving watch, sleek and compact enough to be perfect as an everyday sports watch, but with a performance that makes it robust and reliable underwater. The case is in pure titanium, 44 mm in diameter, 13 mm thick, with 3mm-thick watchglass and…
With its new 2016 Khaki Navy Frogman pieces, Hamilton is showing its ability to compete with brands such as Tudor and Rolex, at much lower prices, with watch types including the day-date and diver’s. In the latter category, Hamilton has some historical traditions, because it supplied the U.S. Navy Seals with diving watches, and it…
This watch by Blancpain, part of the Fifty Fathoms Collection, is a limited edition diving watch and the first of a series in the Blancpain Ocean Commitment programme. For each piece sold, €1,000 will be donated to scientific expeditions. Owners become members of the Blancpain Ocean Commitment Circle, giving them special benefits such as opportunities to meet…
Tudor retains its approach to marketing that hallmarked it at its origins: technical and reliable watches. While not everyone can be an underwater adventurer or explorer, Tudor taps into these theme with the Pelagos, a lifestyle watch that also has impressive diver’s watch performance. Most importantly, Pelagos shares (with North Flag) the big Tudor news…
Ulysse Nardin deserve commendation for creating a diver’s watch for women that is not just a scaled-down version of a men’s diver. It is a curious concept, because though it presents certain features typical of a diver’s watch – principally the unidirectional rotating bezel and screw-down crown – they don’t seem to have any real…
This is a watch with a lot of history behind it. The watch in something like its present configuration was launched by Ulysse Nardin in about 2000 and has since been made in many different models, but its origin runs right back to its 19th-century deck chronometers. In the photo below (from the book Ulysse…
The Ocean One Vintage Dual Time by German brand Steinhart was inspired by the Rolex GMT Master II, and in particular its distinctive two-colour bezel (the red-blue version known as the Pepsi bezel), with the white dial that originated with the PanAm Rolex GMT made as a limited edition for the airline’s pilots in 1954.…
The Omega Seamaster 300 is a diving watch that Omega launched in 1957 and reintroduced at Baselworld 2014. This year’s version differs from the 2014 version principally for the soft leather strap with contrasting stitching that gives a new vintage-type look to the piece. The 41mm case is in stainless steel with Sedna gold details (Sedna…
This is a large diver’s watch, 47 mm in diameter making it the largest piece in the Sinn range, and it complies with the diver’s watch standard DIN 8306, substantially equivalent to ISO 6425. It is named U212 for a reason: U212 is a modern German submarine currently used by the navies of Germany, Italy…