OPINION: Five reasons why a dive watch is the ultimate must-have in any collection
Henry ZwartzIt’s that time of year in Australia where you can hear cricket blasting from people’s living rooms as you wander down to your local beach or pool. The heat (in Sydney) can get so great at this time of year that when it rains you can see steam coming off the asphalt streets. The rain streaks across the dial of a dive watch I’ve been wearing a lot this summer – an Ollech and Wajs C-1000 – before I hop into the sea.
Now, I’ve always been interested in dive watches – to the point where they make up half my collection. This makes sense since I’m in the ocean every day. But there’s more to dive watches than simply the water resistance. Here’s five reasons why, this summer (for those of us Down Under), a dive watch would be your perfect wrist-bound companion.
Ruggedness/bashability/an excuse for an aquatic adventure
Let’s perhaps start with the most obvious reason first. Dive watches are generally defined not just by their water resistance but by their general ruggedness. There’s something quite romantic about a watch that you can literally take on any adventure and expect it to reliably hold up.
That romance started with the inception of the category as a professional tool to aid real-world divers, but has been enhanced by popular culture with the likes of James Bond and his Rolex Submariner or Omega Seamasters. There is something simple and magical about a humble tool watch, and many people I know who aren’t really into tool watches will still have a trusty Seiko or perhaps a Citizen dive watch to take with them as something not to worry too much about throwing around.
Lastly, if you buy a rugged watch it’s also a good mental commitment to then promise yourself an adventure to accompany this new purchase. Hop on your motorbike, pushbike, go on a hike, find a beach. Fling yourself into a body of water and live a little.
The cool factor
Dive watches are just cool. There’s no two ways around it. Some people love chronographs, others love Calatravas or sector dial watches. Others again love skeletonised watches or tourbillons. But dive watches are, as far as I’m concerned, a “full stop” when it comes to watch culture. You could dabble in any category of watch, but to me anyway, dive watches are a category that one could inhabit happily as a collector and never venture to any other options.
This could change in time, mind you, but right now anything outside of dive watches I have experimented with in my watch collecting journey has been just that. An experiment. I keep coming back to dive watches. They are just so cool!
A clear design
What is a dress watch anyway? When one imagines a dress watch I think that is a term that can be subject to a whole lot of interpretation. Controversially perhaps I look at my IWC MK XV pilot’s watch as a dress watch option. Because of its size, it acts as a sort of dressed-down dress watch in my eyes. Same with vintage Tudor and Rolex Oysters – tool watches in their time – that now serve, to me, as dress watch options. Times change our conceptions of what makes a watch a “dress watch”.
Whereas the aesthetic of dive watches has been remarkably consistent. There’s the unique designs of some brands (looking at you DOXA) and the differences between super compressors and non super compressors, but generally speaking there’s a uniformity and clarity of design in the category that you don’t really find elsewhere in the watch world (except other specifically toolish offerings like pilot’s watches). Clarity in design is a useful thing that helps you know exactly what to look for.
Choice/value for money
This leads me to my last point. Because dive watches have been so popular with consumers since the pioneers in the 1950s, there have been a vast number of dive watches produced by so many different brands.
So as consumers we are spoilt for choice, and the popularity of the class also helps provide some of the best value options in the watch world. Your selection ranges from the affordable to the mid-range and luxury levels. I’d argue affordable automatic options from some of the major Japanese watchmakers are a good way to explore the category if you don’t already own one. But there are also affordable Swiss and German options out there, too, depending on your tastes.
In short, with COVID wreaking a little chaos in so many of our lives over the last couple of years, perhaps a trip to the beach, pool or waterfall is the perfect antidote to start the new year. And what better horological companion than a trusty dive watch?