Photography by Roger Ruegger.

Blancpain is celebrating the 70th anniversary of its iconic Fifty Fathoms dive watch with the launch of a new model, the Tech Gombessa Fifty Fathoms. The diver was co-developed by Blancpain CEO, Marc A. Hayek, and founder of the Gombessa Expeditions, Laurent Ballesta, and highlights seven decades since the first ground-breaking Fifty Fathoms hit the market. The watch also marks the 10th anniversary of the Gombessa project, a marine research team which has conducted numerous expeditionary dives to explore some of the ocean’s foremost biological mysteries. Blancpain continues to be a major partner for Gombessa, having been a founding partner with the team at its debut in 2013.

The new watch works to carry on the technological legacy of the Fifty Fathoms line, which at its debut in 1953 was considered the first modern diver and a major innovation for the category, complete with superior water resistance and dial legibility, alongside the now standard and signature unidirectional bezel with diving scale. The next-generation Fifty Fathoms thus features the “Tech” name to highlight its innovative effort.
Importantly, the professional timepiece features a 3-hour dive counter on the dial and matching outer unidirectional bezel, with the inclusion of the feature representing a novel complication in the history of dive watches. The research, creation, and application of the complication was directly informed by Blancpain&...