Scuba Fifty Fathoms
Model history
After the success of the MoonSwatch with Omega, in 2023 Swatch repeated the formula of an in-group collaboration, choosing as its partner Blancpain, the maison credited with inventing the Fifty Fathoms in 1953: regarded as the first true modern dive watch, developed by Jean-Jacques Fiechter to meet the needs of the French navy's combat divers.
The Scuba Fifty Fathoms collection debuted on 9 September 2023, coinciding with the seventieth anniversary of the original Fifty Fathoms, with five bioceramic colourways — each dedicated to one of the world's oceans — later expanded with a sixth model. Unlike the quartz-powered MoonSwatch, this collaboration went a step further: it is fitted with the Sistem51 automatic mechanical calibre, with a 90-hour power reserve and a single central screw construction, bringing genuine Swiss mechanics into Swatch's typical accessible format, while picking up design details from the original watch such as the knurled bezel and the dial markings.
As had happened with Omega the year before, this collaboration also generated a wave of media and commercial interest, with Bloomberg reporting a new sales peak linked to the launch. The Scuba Fifty Fathoms thus confirmed that the format tested with the MoonSwatch was not a one-off episode but a repeatable strategy for the Swatch Group: using the accessibility of the Swatch brand to keep the historic legacies of the group's maisons alive for a wider audience.
Technical specifications
Main versions
The original 1953 Fifty Fathoms was created for the "nageurs de combat", the French navy's assault divers: seventy years later, its legacy is back on the wrists of a much wider audience thanks to a calibre designed to be produced with almost no manual labour.