A question I’m often asked is what is my favourite watch. It’s a question I really can’t answer because there are so many to choose from, but I suppose everyone has their favourite watch type and for me it’s always been dive watches. More specifically though, it’s vintage dive watches. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against modern dive watches, and most of the time you’ll find me wearing a Panerai, Anonimo or IWC, but nothing makes my heart sing more than a dive watch from the 1960’s & 1970’s.
The first dive watches were produced much earlier than the 1960’s of course, but it was during the 1960’s that dive watches suddenly became more abundant, being produced by many more watch makers. This was mainly due to advances in technology and manufacturing which resulted in greatly improved water resistance, but for me it also had a lot to do with a certain French explorer, conservationist, & filmmaker, Monsieur Jaques Cousteau.
It was Cousteau who, along with engineer Emile Gagnan, invented the Aqua-Lung. The two men met in 1942, and it was Cousteau’s influence that led to Gagnan’s automatic demand regulator being adapted to diving. The Cousteau-Gagnan patent was registered some weeks later in 1943, and and after the war, both men founded La Spirotechnique in order to mass-produce and sell their new invention, which they called CG45 (“C” for Cousteau, “G” for Gagnan and “45” for 1945). The CG45 was small and easy to carry, but more importantly it could be mounted on stronger, and more reliable air tanks, which could hold up to 200 atmospheres. This was important because it extended dive times to more than an hour at significant depths.
It wasn’t just the invention of the Aqua-Lung however that led to scuba diving becoming more popular, although that certainly made it’s popularity possible. In 1950, having left the French navy, Cousteau founded the French Oceanographic Campaigns (FOC) and leased a former Royal navy minesweeper vessel, which he called ‘Calypso’. The ship was re-fitted as a mobile laboratory for field research and became his principal vessel for diving and filming. Couteau published “Silent World”, his first book with Frederic Dumas in 1953, and in 1956 the film (co-produced with Louis Malle) won the Palme d’ Or at the Cannes film festival. His second film “World without Sun” was released in 1963. Cousteau went on to establish himself as a legendary explorer around the world over the next 30 years with his two legendary documentary series – ‘The Undersea world of Jacques Cousteau’ (1966 – 1982) and ‘Cousteau’s Rediscovery of the World’ (1986-1994). With these films, Cousteau and the divers on the Calypso fascinated me & captured the imagination of the world with their underwater footage.
The interest generated by Cousteau’s films made SCUBA as exciting during the 1960’s as the space race, and the world of horology was not immune from that excitement. The technology to make watch cases resistant to water was being developed all the time, and just about every watch manufacturer introduced a dive watch. Cousteau and the divers on the Calypso can be seen wearing a wide variety of dive watches available at the time, and the manufacturers even got Cousteau involved in the design of new watches. Omega developed a close relationship with Cousteau during the Conshelf II experiments, and in the 1970’s developed the Ploprof 600 with the help of Cousteau and COMEX. This iconic timepiece can be seen on the wrist of Albert Falco in The Undersea world of Jacques Cousteau, and influenced as I was by this series I just had to have one too.
So this is how my fascination with vintage dive watches came about. Over the years I’ve managed to collect a few, and I may well feature some of them in my blog in the weeks / months to come. I don’t wear them as often as I probably should, but when I do it’s always special. The photo at the top of the page shows some of my favourites, and if I had to choose just one it would probably be the US Divers Favre Leuba Deep Blue in the bottom right corner (I’ll definitely write a blog post on this watch at some stage), and so to all those who suggest I’m somehow obsessed with vintage dive watches, I lay the blame directly at the feet of Jaques Cousteau.
If anyone is interested in reading more about Jaques Cousteau, the Calypso, and the watches Cousteau and the crew wore, the feature by Monochrome is a fabulous read (highly recommended). It’s broken down into three parts. Part one focuses on Cousteau himself, Part two on the watches of the 1960’s and Part three on the watches of the 70’s and 80’s.
Another good resource for anyone who, like me, is interested in vintage dive watches, is www.scubawatch.org