By the early 1940s, Emile Gagnan and Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s Aqualung – the first commercially successful self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (a.k.a Scuba)- had become a worldwide phenomenon. Along with the growing popularity of recreational diving, the needs of military and professional divers underscored the paramount importance of reliable sub-aquatic instruments. Developed in 1953, the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms is often regarded as the archetype of the dive watch: a robust, highly legible watch, water-resistant to great depths (91 meters, in this instance) and equipped with a unidirectional rotating bezel to time dives.
