Panerai have progressively developed the look of their watches into an image of strength and toughness. The dial is unmistakable, legible by night and day, and with the new moderate 42 mm case size, the watch is practical and wearable for everyday life as well as for use underwater, and suitable for all those Panerai…
Sports watches were one of the dominant themes at Baselworld 2017: the sort of watches that borrow some features of diving watches but are intended more for general use than specifically for diving. They generally have the water resistance of diver’s watches, enabling them to be kept on while swimming, diving, or just hiking in…
NOMOS Glashütte don’t release figures about how many watches they sell, but it’s clear that they are doing well. It’s the German brand with best sales in terms of number of watches sold, and in 2016, which was a problem year for many watchmaking companies, they had a 10% increase in turnover. Their secret? Simple,…
A dominant trend at Baselworld 2017 is the effort by brands large and small to provide a lower entry-level price. Low-cost movements by companies such as Ronda with the Mecano make automatic watches even more attractive at the lower end of the market. This year, Tudor have created a new mechanical watch for women starting…
This lovely dive watch by Oris is dedicated to Carl Brashear, the U.S. Navy’s first African American master diver. Brashear, born in 1931, overcame racial descrimination in his long naval career that began when he was just 17, and in 1966 lost the lower part of his left leg following an accident during a mission to salvage a…
The new versions of the Panerai Luminor Submersible evoke toughness, with their big chunky cases. The Luminor Submersible 1950 3 Days Automatic Bronzo brings together two of the top trends in watches this season, bronze case and blue dial. The colour scheme is enhanced by the beige SuperLuminova on dial markings and hands. And that…
There are diving watches, and diver’s watches. They are not equivalent terms. Diving watches in general are designed for use underwater and so have a number of specific characteristics, principally water resistance of at least 10 bar/100 metres and a unidirectional rotating bezel. On the other hand, watches that have “Diver’s” on the dial have…
A diving watch offers a series of technical characteristics that make them suitable for use underwater up to their rated depth. These comprise water resistance, with each watch tested in water under pressure, a unidirectional rotating bezel on which the first fifteen minutes are marked minute by minute for increased precision at decompression stops, hour…
At 51 mm diameter, this is certainly a large watch, but after all, Oris call it a tool watch, and it was born to be underwater, strapped over a wet suit. It is a new version of the ProDiver Chronograph introduced in 2009. It has a 100 bar/1,000 metre water resistance, achieved by means of…
The Tudor Heritage Black Bay is a diving watch that was introduced in 2012 and won the Revival Prize at the 2013 GPHG competition. In 2016 a new version of the Heritage Black Bay was presented, Tudor Heritage Black Bay Bronze, with a bronze case and the in-house movement first seen in 2015. The new…
It was back in the 1950s when Eberhard & Co. presented its Scafograf 300, the days when dive computers had not been invented – they first appeared in 1953 but they only gained widespread acceptance in the late 1980s and even later – and mechanical watches were still functional objects and not luxury items. The…
Italian brand Locman stakes a claim for having made the world’s first watch with a carbon fibre case, back in 2003. Whatever, there is no doubt that their Stealth diving watch is one of their best sellers. It is now available in an automatic version, Stealth 300 Metres Carbon, with all-carbon dial and case. Its…