Vintage Eye for the Modern Guy: Baltic Aquascaphe
The year 2018 saw a proliferation of “micro” watch brands along with continuing popularity for contemporary, vintage-inspired watches, so it seems natural the market also saw significant growth in watch startups working to carve a name for themselves in the industry with “neo-vintage” products. Never far from this conversation has been the French brand Baltic, founded in 2017, which made headlines with its Bicompax chronograph, a piece inspired by 1940s step-case watches. Last year, the brand made an even bigger wave with the reveal of the upcoming Aquascaphe? a competitively priced 1950s- and ?60s-inspired modern diver.
Right off the bat, we find that the Aquascaphe finds its most prominent influence, as its name suggests, in the Blancpain Bathyscaphe. The Bathyscaphe? today reinvigorated in a thriving modern collection? was originally something of a younger brother to the more renowned Fifty Fathom series first developed in 1952. However, Baltic?s founder Etienne Malec mentioned the Waltham dial versions of the vintage Bathyscaphe as the more prominent inspiration. Stylistically, Malec names as one of the great influences on his design process a vintage-watch collection he inherited from his late father, which I suspect may have included a Waltham Bathyscaphe (picture below, via Analog/Shift). These watches were what could well be referred to as ?private label? examples of the Bathyscaphe, produced by Swiss Blancpain, primarily for Waltham?s Ameri...
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