Swatch and Blancpain unveil five new bioceramic watches celebrating the 70th anniversary of the iconic Fifty Fathoms dive watch
After days of teasing on social media, Swatch and Blancpain finally unveiled their first collaborative project: a collection of five Bioceramic Scuba Fifty Fathoms watches, each named after the five oceans. It is modelled after Blancpain's iconic dive watch, Fifty Fathoms, which is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year. True to its namesake, the watch is water-resistant up to 91m, which is equivalent to 50 fathoms in maritime speak.
The Bioceramic Scuba Fifty Fathoms is powered by the automatic Sistem51 developed and introduced by Swatch in 2013. Composed of 51 parts with a central screw, it is fitted with Nivachron hairspring which is resistant to magnetic interferences, and it possesses 90 hours of power reserve. On the caseback, the rotor features a digital print of the ocean the watch represents as well as the colourful marine life, Nudibranchia, that inhabits it. This is the first Swatch Scuba with Sistem51 since its launch in 1990.
Read more: What you may not know about the origins of these iconic dive watches
Ardent collectors may want to look out for the Artic Ocean Bioceramic Scuba Fifty Fathoms with a dial that features a red trefoil on a yellow background with a white cross and the words “No Radiations” above it. The same logo adorns the dive watches in the 1960s to show that they do not contain radioactive radium.
See also: The new MoonSwatch features Omega's signature Moonshine Gold