By
Bloomberg
Published
Sep 9, 2023
Swatch Group AG’s next low-priced luxury offering is a collaboration with storied Swiss watchmaker Blancpain that will sell a budget version of a timepiece linked to Jacques Cousteau.
The Bioceramic Scuba Fifty Fathoms, a range of five watches whose colors and designs reflect each of the world’s oceans, will be available in selected Swatch stores globally from September 9. They’ll cost $400, a fraction of the tens of thousands of dollars that a Blancpain timepiece can retail for.
Swatch is doubling down on its strategy to offer budget versions of premium timepieces. The new partnership follows last year’s tie up with its Omega brand that saw thousands of shoppers queue at stores from Melbourne to Geneva to snap up a MoonSwatch. Swatch has just launched a new version of the collection in an effort to reinvigorate interest in the collaboration.
After an unprecedented surge during the pandemic, demand for pricey watches from top Swiss brands has cooled amid a slowing global economy, rising interest rates and surging inflation. That’s seen prices for the most hyped items plunge on the secondary market.
Created 70 years ago and viewed as the first modern diver’s watch, Fifty Fathoms pieces were popular with military divers in France, Spain, Germany and the US. Famed oceanographer Cousteau selected the watch for his team of divers during the filming of his Oscar-winning film The Silent World, according to the company.
The new watches use Swatch’s SISTEM51 mechanical movement, have luminescent hands and hour markers, and are inscribed with ‘No Radiations’ in a nod to Blancpain’s historic timepieces.
Like the name suggests, the watches are waterproof to 50 fathoms — or 300 feet for landlubbers.
