Watches

That's why I like the Aquaracer. At least it has a dodecagonal bezel and previous models had their own unique bezels. Now that they moved the date at 6 it's even better. Now I wouldn't pay their asking price, but design wise it stands out from the others in a nice way.

The dive watch (as well as the field watch, the pilots watch…) has followed the same trajectory as so many other items of menswear. Think about the bomber jacket, the desert boot, aviator sunglasses, driving loafers, 1980s basketball sneakers, etc etc — all of these items once had a very specific purpose, and all have long since outlived that purpose as a more general-interest fashion staple. There are tons of thoroughly modern incarnations of all these items, but plenty of them hew pretty close to the more traditional designs, because, after all, it was those original designs that inspired people to say “I don’t actually need that piece of gear, but goddamn it looks cool” in the first place.

It makes sense that a lot of people would want a Sub-type dive watch, the same way it makes sense that a lot of people want an Alpha Industries-style bomber jacket. That was the design that made the whole style catch on. And, for me, the fact that most dive watch owners aren’t scuba divers isn’t any more scandalous than bomber jacket wearers not being pilots, or Air Jordan 4 wearers not playing basketball in them.

What if I told you that the Submariner is itself a Blancpain Fifty Fathoms copy?