Diving Differently With The Blancpain Fifty Fathoms
The Blancpain Fifty Fathoms has been an icon among diving watches ever since its conception in 1953. It was a trailblazer whose profile has become one of the most recognized in the industry. While Blancpain is still making the Fifty Fathoms with a modern interpretation of the vintage lines, they are also pushing the envelope and have created a few versions that you might not expect.
The Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe Quantieme Annuel looks first and foremost like a functional diving watch. However, it has a few added features that will, especially on dry land, be appreciated. Next to the date window at three o’clock does it have two additional windows on the dial. One displays the month and the other the day. Combined, they form the annual calendar complication, which means that the date on this watch only needs to be manually adjusted in February of each year. Quite useful, yet very rare to find on a diving watch, especially one as capable as the Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe with its 300-meter water-resistant.
It is perhaps even more unusual to find a full calendar on a diving watch, yet Blancpain also did just that. With this feature does the brand integrate two of its signature features into a single watch. When the brand was brought back to its former glory by Jean-Claude Biver just after the quartz-crisis, the full calendar became one of the hallmark features of the brand. With the Fifty Fathoms Bathyscape Complete Calendar, we can now also enjoy this at great depths. Again, Blancpain gets credit for the way that they integrated this complication into the design of the diving watch. While it offers a lot of additional information, what matters most underwater is instant readability of the time that has passed from the start of the dive. That is still ensured by the bold hands, generously filled with luminous material. The watch also shows off the technical capabilities of Blancpain as, despite its correctors in the flank of the case, this Fifty Fathoms Bathyscape has a water resistance of 300 meters. So that these divers are significantly different from others in the market doesn’t mean that you have to dive less deep with them.
