Does the lack of dive watches at Watches & Wonders 2025 signal a drier future?
Buffy AcaciaThis year was my fifth Watches & Wonders with Time+Tide, and I’ve been noticing a particular downward trend. When I started here, absolutely everything was about the dive watch. Retro reissues, vintage-inspired homages, and function-first tool watches were particularly popular, and there was a new microbrand diver selling out on Kickstarter every single week. Now? It seems like people have had their fill, and the clear drought of new dive watch releases in Geneva this month is a strong indicator of how the times have changed.
Let’s jump back just a little to Watches & Wonders 2022. Rolex released the Deepsea Challenge, its deepest-diving diver yet; TAG Heuer unveiled the Aquaracer Superdiver and Aquaracer Solargraph; Grand Seiko pushed the Spring Drive Diver SLGA015; and even Jaeger-LeCoultre placed a perpetual calendar into the Polaris. As a prestige watch fair, it never prioritised sporty, casual releases, but the presence of dive watch popularity was certainly still felt.
Well, it’s not revolutionary to notice that trends phase in and out. Customers get sick of seeing similar things after a while, and once most collectors already own a dive watch, they’re less likely to buy more. However, it’s not so much that dive watches are no longer top dog that’s interesting, but rather what has taken their place. Integrated bracelet sports watches are now almost as prevalent as dive watches were, and they have thoroughly created a genre unto themselves.
We’re a long way away from simple homages to the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak and Patek Philippe Nautilus now. Take a look at the Baume & Mercier Riviera, the Chopard Alpine Eagle, the Czapek Antarctique, the Chronoswiss Pulse, the Eberhard & Co. Contodat, the IWC Ingenieur… All of those collections represent new integrated bracelet releases at this year’s Watches & Wonders, and there are even more I didn’t list. In fact, of the 30+ watches released on bracelets, over half of them were integrated. That’s huge.
Another thing to remember is that wristwatch technology is generally improving all the time. It wasn’t that long ago when hacking seconds and hand-winding weren’t expected features for an automatic movement, especially on the more affordable end. A large contribution to the popularity of dive watches was a general anxiety about water resistance when swimming, and the belief that you absolutely needed a 100-metre rating and a screw-down crown for a dip in the paddle pool. That has mostly passed, and consumers are comfortable to swim with a 100m rating, which has become a widespread specification across all sorts of watches, regardless of the intended use case.
Given those considerations, as well as the fact that smaller, slimmer cases have been more fashionable for several years now, the archetypal dive watch is likely to become even less of a priority. It will be interesting to see what other knock-on effects that may have, such as dive-centric brands shifting focus. Will Omega’s Seamaster catalogue receive fewer updates in favour of its underrated De Ville models? Will wearing dive watches with formalwear become even more of a fashion faux pas once more? Personally, I’m hoping we continue to see a proliferation of original designs rather than the retro reissues that flooded us five years ago…