Today, Watch Editor Johnny Brayson talks with Gear Patrol Co-Founder and Chief Content Officer Ben Bowers about how the dive watch came to dominate and define the watch industry and the greater world of men's fashion.
Welcome to Know Your Stuff, a podcast where we unbox trends in consumer culture, one topic at a time.
Today, Watch Editor Johnny Brayson talks with Gear Patrol Co-Founder and Chief Content Officer Ben Bowers about how the dive watch came to dominate and define the watch industry and the greater world of men's fashion.
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Ben Bowers: So, Johnny, I feel like the idea behind this podcast came up as we were just discussing how dive watch esthetics have kind of taken over the wristwatch industry at large. And you obviously know a lot more about this than I do, but I'm kind of curious for our audience if maybe the place to start here is to just talk about what makes a dive watch a dive watch. How do you view the kind of key components that define something that is a dive watch versus something that might just look like a dive watch?
Johnny Brayson: A dive watch is like a specific style of watch that was originally created literally to help people diving, scuba diving. And they all share a few traits that are basically non-negotiable. The first of these is a high water resistance, typically at least 100m, more commonly 2 or 300m, even though you're likely not diving down that far. This is obviously the most essential because without this high water resistance, your watch is not going to survive. If you take it underwater. Next is the unidirectional rotating bezel. A bezel is sort of a top ring that you'll find on some designs, and on a dive watch. It will rotate only in one direction and it measures elapsed time. And the reason it's just you a directional is you don't want that bezel to accidentally get knocked backwards, and suggests that you've been underwater for less time than you actually have been. Outside of that, and the main thing that a dive watch requires is high legibility. And that's in both bright conditions and dark conditions. So you'll see on dive watches very large, bold, clear indices and hands that are very legible. Those hands and indices also need to be luminous so that they glow in the dark. Because when you're underwater, the deeper you go, the less sunlight there is. It gets dark. So you need to be able to see and realize how long you've been down there.
Ben Bowers: Right? And that all tracks with my general knowledge. There are a class of dive watches out there, though, that go much deeper. Right. And they have some additional features to kind of make them even more water resistant. I'm thinking of things like the deep sea, for example. Sure. So those would be like, you know, highly specific that are just brands really showing off.
Johnny Brayson: I forget the exact water resistance of the Rolex Deep Sea, but it's around, I want to say 12,000m maybe. Basically, once you get to that point, you've got some ridiculous levels of engineering going on with extremely thick crystals and super heavy duty gaskets and a lot of other stuff. That is certainly overkill for anyone, but it's just fun bragging rights for brands and for people who are on those watches. There's also a class of dive watches that are known as diver's watches. So these watches. these watches require certain testing not only for their water resistance, but against condensation, magnetism, shocks, temperature changes, a whole bunch of other things. So anytime you see a dive watch that says divers on it, you know that it actually meets these standards known as ISO 6425 - which not all dive watches do. Some of the most popular, you know, Rolex Submariner, Omega Seamaster. These watches are not ISO standard meeting dive watches for divers watches, but they're still considered that watches.
Ben Bowers: Now that we've got this background on sort of what constitutes a dive watch, can you talk to me about when dive watches kind of came on the scene in watchmaking? What's really the origin story behind them?
Johnny Brayson: So wristwatches themselves debuted in the 1800s by and large, and they were originally just jewelry for women. So they became Louis Breguet, who is the founder of Breguet, inventor of the Tourbillon. He's usually credited as having invented the wristwatch. He made a watch, a jewelry piece for the Queen of Naples in 1810. And then it became sort of a, you know, a fashion item for women. It wasn't until around the turn of the 19th into the 20th century, when wristwatches first started to be worn by men, and not widely until after World War one. So when World War One soldiers found it was too cumbersome to carry a pocket watch into battle, it started wearing what were known as trench watches, which were effectively pocket watch. It's kind of strapped to the wrist. Once they discovered, it's much easier to just look at my wrist to see the time, then how a chained hunk of steel out of my pocket, wristwatches became more popular. But at the time it was much formal. We're talking like 1920s Great Gatsby stuff. It was a lot more formal, the style of what everyone was wearing. So all watches were dress watches, basically. Like if you watch any movies from the 30s and 40s and look at what the men were wearing, it was always these tiny little Cartier tanks and things that look like that.
You got to go to another war, World War Two, when you start to see it change. So by this time, trench watches have evolved to be smaller and a bit more handy. They evolved to like what we would now call a field watch. There are also dedicated pilot's watches. And you know, these watches were tools effectively and also a bit sportier than what had come before the fact that women were wearing wristwatches for a while. We decided to call the first ones trench watches. People started wearing watches in war more as dedicated tools.
Ben Bowers: What kind of happened next from there?
Johnny Brayson: In the post World War two world, we had a few things that happened. There was a huge technological development as a result of the war as well as this booming economy that resulted in a lot more leisure time than people had previously. One result of that is the increase in recreational sports for people, and one of the newest sports was scuba diving. So that was invented in the 1940s. And by the time the war was over, you get into the 1950s, it was starting to gain in popularity. Watch brands saw an opening to create a watch that would be dedicated to this new hobby that people were pursuing and were excited about, and that's how we got the first dive watches.
So they arrived on the scene in 1953. They're actually three dive watches that debuted that year. The first is usually credited as the Blancpain 50 Fathoms, which, speaking of war, that was commissioned by the French Navy. That really set the template of what these watches had, you know, all those features that I was talking about before of the rotating bezel. You know, the high water resistance, the highly legible and luminous dial that was all present on the blank pan, independent of that. That same year, Rolex debuted the submariner, which was not created for the military. It was created for civilian use, even though it would later be adapted in military form in future years, and then the Zodiac Seawolf, which was much the lesser known diver that nonetheless also came out that same year, and all of these had effectively the same features and and launched an entirely new genre of watch that was at that time a specified tool meant for people who were diving.
Ben Bowers: Was there some kind of design breakthrough that caused everyone to kind of release these all the same time?
Johnny Brayson: You know, not that I'm aware of. There's a lot of speculation and intrigue about it, of who stole the design of whom. And espionage had caught corporate espionage. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I honestly think it was just people thinking, okay, this here's some problems that need to be solved. And this is kind of the obvious way to solve them. But yeah, there's definitely controversy. There's speculation. There are people out there who there was like a story that came out this year, last year where someone did this like deep dive article claiming that Block Pan wasn't actually first and that it's all a lie. And I don't know about all that, but yet there are people out there who would think that it was maybe one brand, maybe Rolex who came up with it, and then other brands kind of borrowed it, but, well, yeah, we'll probably never have that.
Ben Bowers: You mentioned one of them being commissioned by the French Navy. I believe it was the 50 Fathoms. Can you talk a little bit more about that? So is the idea there that the Navy goes to a watchmaker and says we've asked our soldiers what they need and here's some specifications and basically build this to our demands.
Johnny Brayson: I mean, they're known as mil-spec watches because that's what they had. The military would put out these exact specifications, like the watch needs to be visible in this amount of light. It needs to be resistant to this amount of shocks. It needs to have a screw down crown. It needs to be able to resist this much water pressure and so on and so forth. And yeah, that's basically what happened. So that's what what happened with that watch wouldn't exist if it weren't for the needs of the French military at the time. And again, like scuba was new. So it was not only new in the recreational sports realm, but it was new for military. So they were also making use of this new technology and forming these elite dive units. And these dive watches were just part of their kit.
Ben Bowers: Yeah. And I feel like one other thing, and I'm out of my depth here, no pun intended. Johnny maybe you have a little bit more clarity. Sort of why scuba diving requires the timing device. And from what I gather, I'm not a diver myself is one is you need to know how long you've been underwater for, to understand how much oxygen you have left to expend. But also it's necessary to make sure you pace, especially when you're ascending back up, that you come up at a certain pace so that the nitrogen in your blood doesn't cause some pretty negative things on the body, so that it's not just a watch.
Johnny Brayson: Right? These watches came because scuba diving and timing are sort of it's important to get the timing right to be successful.
Ben Bowers: Yeah. I'm not a diver either, but I certainly understand that there's a fair amount of danger involved. So if you're not timing your dives, right, not only for knowing how much oxygen you have left, but what you're referring to with the nitrogen in your blood would be the decompression stops. So as you're underwater, the longer under there and the deeper you go. As I understand it, your blood essentially fills with nitrogen. And if you just fly up to the surface with that amount of nitrogen in your blood, it can give you the bends, which is diver sickness, or I believe in some cases it can even kill you if it's severe enough.
Johnny Brayson: So yeah, you're supposed to. As you're ascending, you make stops at certain deaths and you kind of hang out there for predetermined amounts of time that allow that nitrogen to dissipate. So that you can then safely ascend without killing yourself.
Ben Bowers: Yeah. Anyone who's a listener, who's a professional diver and wants to explain this to us clearly, please feel free to reach out to us and, correct us on that. How did these kind of specialized tool watches for the military? How did they break out from there?
Johnny Brayson: Well, I think the short answer, as far as how they broke out into wider public use outside of military and recreational divers, would be James Bond. James Bond is probably recognized as the quote unquote, coolest movie character. He still has an outsized influence on men's fashion and style trends, and that was probably even more true when he first came out of the scene in the 1960s. So the first James Bond movie was Doctor No. 1962 and in that film, Sean Connery wears a Rolex Submariner. And that was really the first time that anyone had seen, you know, I mentioned movie stars up to that point where wearing, you know, Cartier tanks and that sort of thing. So no one had really seen this kind of big, sporty looking, cool looking, purpose built tool watch on like a movie hero before.
So you have James Bond, you know, the coolest of the cool, wearing a Rolex Submariner with a tuxedo and, you know, beating people up for whatever from that. I mean, since the beginning, people kind of wanted to emulate James Bond and, you know, putting a dive watch on your wrist was a much easier way to do that than, you know, getting an Aston Martin or or filing for a license to kill.
Ben Bowers: Is there any backstory about why the submariner was the watch chosen? Was it just a licensing deal, or was it Connery's personal watch? What's the backstory there?
Johnny Brayson: This is like another like a legend that that no one really knows for sure. The most prevailing legend, and one that I've heard the most often, is that Cubby Broccoli held absurd name, but he was the longtime producer of the James Bond films. The story goes that he noticed Connery didn't have a watch, wasn't wearing one, and so he gave him the Rolex Submariner, his own personal Rolex Submariner, to wear that legend also. Or these versions of that, legend also suggests that the reason the bond wears the watch on what is an undersized NATO strap, because I think it's on like a 16 millimeter wide strap, when it should be like a 20 millimeter.
Ben Bowers: You mean thinner for people who don't do this? Yeah a thinner strap - They could support a thicker strap.
Johnny Brayson: Exactly. Yeah. So it looks a little weird on the watch. You can see like there's very visible spring bars. Legend suggests that the reason that that is, is because Cubby Broccoli's watch on the bracelet would not fit Sean Connery's wrist. And so they, like, scrambled and found this strap last minute and kind of threw it on there and threw down source. I don't know how true any of that is, but that is the most common legend that I've heard. But it certainly wasn't product placement or anything like that.
Ben Bowers: I love that this is reached legendary status because we're not talking that far back. What, 70? Approximately years? When did Doctor No come out?
Johnny Brayson: 62 years ago. So bond wears not only a dive watch in a formal setting. Now you're gonna have to maybe go back and watch the movie to see how many ways it pops up. I don't know if it had lasers at that point in the franchise, that probably back then it was just a watch, just to dive watch. But so he he sports not only a dive watch, which is unusual, but a Rolex Submariner. And I mean, when I think of Rolex and I don't think I'm an oddball here, the submariner is kind of the first watch that pops into my mind of what defines Rolex, which is, you know, arguably interesting given that Rolex makes a lot of really fine timepieces and, you know, including other famous dressier models like Presidential and Oyster and Oyster Perpetual, the day, just things like that.
Ben Bowers: So was it just suddenly an explosion for Rolex in the category in general for for bond to sport those?
Johnny Brayson: I don't know that I would describe it as an explosion. I mean, at the time, I'm almost positive the date just was Rolex's best seller by far. But I think that the Rolex, the Mariner was also the best known dive watch at the time. And if you look, I mean Rolex since the beginning has been the king of marketing. Like you can debate whether the king of watches or not, but there's no debating that. They are far and away the best marketing brand in watches. And maybe just in general, like you look at the very first Rolex oysters, you know, from the 1920s that were waterproof and, you know, the sales associates would put them in fish bowls in real expertise to show people how waterproof they were. And then the whole story of, like, the Rolex Explorer being worn by Sir Edmund Hillary when he scaled Everest, when it turns out he wasn't actually wearing the Rolex I haven't seen. Rolex has always been the king of marketing. And I think that, you know, through those efforts, people, at least people that knew of dive watches probably knew the Rolex, the Mariner better than any other.
I think that's one reason why, you know, that's the watch, that Bond for a possible other reason, too, is that Ian Fleming, the creator of bond in the novels, he never mentions the same mariner, but he does mention bond wearing a Rolex Oyster watch, and it's assumed that he was probably referring to his own personal explorer. 1016 that could have taken that into account as well of being like, okay, bond, we know from the books he wears a Rolex, he's a Navy guy. Maybe we should throw a dive watch on him. That's Rolex. Bond shows kind of to men in general that sport watches are cool.
Ben Bowers: Rolex gets the credit with the Submariner in particular, but sort of how does the market start to react after that moment?
Johnny Brayson: So I think a couple of things happen. I mean, you definitely you certainly have that bond effect of people wanting to emulate him, but at the same time, not everyone can afford a Rolex. Or if you look at the current James Bond, not everyone can afford an Omega Seamaster, which is contractually obligated to wear for the past three decades. So, you know, I think that opened the door for a lot of more affordable brands to make their own dye watches that had a very similar style to the Submariner, so that people could get that same look without having to spend Rolex money. So, I mean, it, this really increased with the advent of quartz technology by Seiko in the late 1960s. So then you had, you know, super accurate watchmaking technology come onto the scene that after a few years, you know, in the the late 70s, going into the 80s, made watchmaking a lot more affordable. So then you had, especially out of Japan, a lot of Seiko, a lot of citizen die watches, whether automatic or quartz, that were just, you know, super affordable and looked great and had a ton of utility.
So I think utility is the other, you know, big draw for dive watches. Like one obviously is that cool factor from bond and the way they look. You know, they they do have like an inherently attractive design that our lizard brains just sort of are drawn to it almost like a sports car. Like you can't really explain it. But outside of that, I mean, dive watches are among the most useful watches to wear. So like when you look back to dress watches, you know, they are typically delicate. You probably don't want to get them wet. They won't do anything other than tell you the time when you have a dive watch. You know it can get wet, it can go into water.
It's meant to be able to like, stand up to knocks and dings. You can bang it around a bit. It glows in the dark. It's super legible. It's very easy to always tell the time and then even the bezel, like, if you're not diving. I've never been diving, but I have dive watches and I use them constantly to time from cooking something, laundry, anything you want every time. A diver bezel is great. So I think the combination of yeah, just the coolness, the way they look and then how useful and robust and rugged they are really led to, you know, this big explosion in their popularity along with just sort of I think the increased casual nature of society, you know, since, since the mid-century, like when Bond came on the scene, everything was still very formal, right? Like people are dressing up to go on airplanes, you know, these days people wear pajamas everywhere. And I think we've gotten each decade seems to become more more and more casual. And so a dive watch, you know, it was invented for sport. It was invented for the military. It wasn't meant to be, you know, a dressy thing. So I think that that casual appeal just also appealed to, you know, people's desire to, to have an everyday watch.
Ben Bowers: Yeah. I mean, I, I buy that argument. Certainly there's a reason why almost every watch brand out there has a dive watch. Then it's probably one of their bestselling models field watches, chronographs. There are other watch styles that exude a similar sporty vibe that aren't specifically tied to diving. I do think it's interesting that the dive watch kind of won out as the preeminent sports watch design over some of those other ones, and maybe that's just the Bond factor. Personally, I will say knowing you're wearing a dive watch makes it a lot easier. Feeling comfortable jumping in the pool or showering with a timepiece going into the ocean. So there's a practical side effect on that. But yeah, do you think anything come to your mind in particular about why the dive watch, in particular as a sports watch model over other types of sports watches?
Johnny Brayson: So you mentioned like a chronograph. I mean, chronographs generally aren't known for their water resistance. They have pushers, which are another way for water to get into the watch, even though they have utility in that they can time things. They have a built in stopwatch. They're not they're usually not as capable of going everywhere and doing everything that a dive watch can field watch. In my opinion, they don't look as good. I think they just closed, in general, like a bit more of a boring design. Whereas, yeah, there's just some sort of Genesis Aqua in a dive watch where that, that bezel, I think, just sort of breaks up the design just enough that it, it just hits esthetically a bit better than, than a field watch. In addition to the added utility of that timing bezel and a you mentioned the water resistance. You feel the watch can be water resistant, but people aren't going to necessarily associate it with that. So just hearing oh divers to submit for water I can wear this on vacation, I can wear this in the pool or whatever. I think that casts a wider net.
Ben Bowers: The bezels also make for. I feel like they're the OG fidget spinner too. I don't know how satisfying to. I mean, some brands invest heavy R&D to make their bezels sound and feel as satisfying as possible. Yeah, and it is satisfying when you turn one that's got a nice click, then a hefty sort of thunk to it. Well, we talked about the Submariner. It's not just any Submariner, right? There's a particular name associated with the one Bond wore. I'd love to get your kind of rundown on sort of beyond the Submariner. What are the other kind of iconic famous dive watches out there that people should know about?
Johnny Brayson: The Submariner is without question the best known. And whether you're talking about the six, five, three, a big crown that James Bond wore or the modern super slick ceramic bezel Submariner. As of today, they're far and away the most iconic not only dive watch, but probably the most recognized watch in the world, most likely after the Rolex. I think it's definitely the Omega Seamaster as the second most recognizable dive watch. And again, that's because of James Bond. If Omega hadn't secured the rights to become Bond's official watch and replace Rolex starting with 90 fives, GoldenEye with Pierce Brosnan, I don't think we'd be talking about the Omega Seamaster as much. I mean, it's still a great watch, but it would probably be, you know, it'd be like the Breitling Superocean or just another dive watch from another luxury brand. The Seamaster existed before Bond too right. It was a product line. But yeah, the Seamaster goes back very far. So the first Seamaster was actually in 1948 and it was a dress watch, the original Seamaster. It was a water resistant watch. It was meant to go in the water, but it looks like a dress watch. If you get a vintage Seamaster. That sort of looked like it wasn't until 57, four years after the submariner in the 50 Fathoms when Omega released the Seamaster 300. So that was their first dedicated die watch with the rotating bezel and all the other goodies.
But the Omega Seamaster, unlike the Submariner, which, you know, if you look at a similar now and you look back at the one James Bond wore for even the first, you know, from the 50s, they looked very, very similar, like Rolex is known for very gradual changes. Omega, on the other hand, has dozens and dozens of sea masters that don't look anything like the next one. It really wasn't until 93 when they launched the Seamaster Diver 300 M, or this you Master Professional as it sometimes called, which became the Bond Watch in 95. That watch is the one that I'm talking about is like the iconic one, and that's the one that really set the the design that went for what that line was going to be and what it still is today. Once they got associated with Bond, they had to keep it consistent from there on out.
Ben Bowers: Yeah. Well, what about other brands? Maybe not from the big boys like Omega and Rolex. I'm Seiko for sure, so I've already mentioned them as helping to popularize the dive watch trends like they're just sort of the everyman watch and their dive watches more than any other watch they make, I think, really exemplify that.
Johnny Brayson: There are countless Seiko dive watches that you could describe as an icon, from the sea to the tuna to the samurai, the turtle. They've all got silly nicknames, but they're probably the dozen that qualify for close to icon status. So Seiko for sure is affordable too, right? For the most part, yeah. I mean, and especially compared to Rolex and Omega, they're absolutely affordable. I think Doxa is another brand that we should mention. So they were they're kind of known as being favored by Jacques Cousteau back in the day, a famed undersea explorer. And the Doxa sub debuted in I think, 67. It looked like nothing else. It had this kind of cushion shaped case, and it was recognized for a dual scale bezel. So not only did it measure elapsed time, but it also measured, depth. So it was recognized for that as well as for its dial color. So it had a bright orange dial, which was very unique for the time, really made it stand out. Doxa created that dial because the belief was it would be more visible underwater, but it turns out that orange is actually one of the first colors to disappear if you descend. So I ended up not being quite as useful as I'd hoped, but it still remains an icon, especially with that orange dial.
Ben Bowers: it looks very much like a piece of scuba diving equipment for someone who doesn't know much about scuba diving you know, of the ones we've talked about. It's sort of the least equipped for the kind of everyday wear. It doesn't really blend in or look as universally stylish as a zebra, like an Omega or a Seiko. It's like, yeah, it looks like a tool that should be on a ship. Well, we touched on the Seawolf by Zodiac and the 50 Fathoms, which were the other two watches released when the first one when?
Johnny Brayson: In 1953. I think you said. And those two watches are still around today as well. Correct. Yeah. Both have a bit of a sportier history just due to various periods of inactivity. A 50 Fathoms. It was never a super well known watch, even though it's credited as being the first dive watch like the first ones were made for the military, and even when they made civilian ones, Blancpain was always a very small Swiss watchmaker and it went away. In general, the brand during what's called the quartz crisis. So in the 1970s and 80s, when, as I mentioned before, quartz became very cheap to produce a lot of the traditional Swiss mechanical watchmakers either went out of business or went dormant. Block Pan was one of them. They didn't produce watches for a long time. And then when they were resurrected in the 80s, it was as a high end horology brand. So they weren't even making sports watches until the two, the 2000, when they finally brought the 50 Fathoms back. But today the modern 50 Fathoms is a very, very high end dive watch, priced considerably higher.
Zodiac on the other hand, is quite affordable. So they're another brand that had periods of inactivity and dormancy, maybe related to the quartz crisis, but also due to association with the Zodiac Killer. Right? Yeah. Same logo. I mean, he's alleged to have worn the Zodiac watch, and that's where he got his the logo from. And more recent years. Zodiac now is owned by Fossil, who has put a lot of money into kind of resurrecting the brand after decades of a wayward trajectory, Zodiac today now produces almost exclusively dive watches that are heavily inspired by the models they made back in the 50s and 60 during their heyday.
Ben Bowers: We touched on a lot of models. But one thing I really do like about the dive watch category is that you can buy a good dive watch for 300 bucks, and you can buy a good dive watch for 30,000 bucks. I mean, there literally is an option at almost every price pop these days, which probably makes it one of the most accessible sport watch categories out there. But I have to two kind of follow up questions to wrap up on here, Johnny.
Johnny Brayson: Actually three make it four.
Ben Bowers: Let's just throw on it. Nerding out over dive watch as well. So my first is you know, you talked about Blancpain being a high end dive watch. The real elite brands above Rolex, well above let’s forget rankings. Just watches that are known for even higher premium price points. Do they make dive watch models as well or is that really a category that they've largely steered clear of?
Johnny Brayson: Mostly steered clear. So Patek and Vacheron don't make any dive watches Audemars Piguet sort of does. They have - there's Royal Oak offshore watches that have, you know, a traditional dive bezel and are kind of meant to go deep. But yeah, for the most part, those super high end brands aren't producing dive watches. Blancpan is I don't know if it's the most expensive dive watch, but it's certainly up there. It's about as high as the industry goes. Why that is, I can't say. Maybe people just feel it's not worth competing in a category that's so dominated by Rolex. And to a lesser extent, Omega and brands associated with sports watches. But yeah, for the most part, those super high end brands aren't making those watches.
Ben Bowers: I mean, I know some of their models are water resistant and have kind of dive capabilities, but like the Aquanaut isn't positioned as a dive watch, even though it kind of sounds like it should be.
Johnny Brayson: And it's interesting that a category that says successful and ubiquitous, that the high end players haven't gotten into that space. Yeah. It's curious. I mean, the Aquanaut was certainly created to be like a water ready sports watch. But I mean, I think even now, like even Patek is sort of getting away from that a little bit. And it's I think it was last year they issued a new water resistant standard across not only the aquanaut, but all of their watches as like a 30 meter water resistance across the board, because I think the iPhone up before was like 120m. So yeah, to make it less water resistant kind of shows that, yeah, they're definitely not interested in going down the sports watch route.
Ben Bowers: Do you think the dive watch dominance trend has an end date at any point? Do you think it's particularly past now and likely to ebb anytime in the near future?
Johnny Brayson: I think it depends on what James Bond does. No probably not. Trends come and go, right. The past few years, we've seen the resurgence of the integrated sports watch. That was like, you know, AP Royal Oak was the first one. And over the past five years or so, basically every brand except Rolex pretty much has come out with their own version of that style of watch. We're starting to see a trend of like smaller dress watches, like these grandpa watches coming into vogue, where a lot of men are wearing, you know, even in some cases, a sub 30 millimeter cased gold watch on a leather strap. And that's sort of coming into vogue. So As long as people are wearing watches that aren't smartwatches, I think they're going to be wearing dive watches.
Ben Bowers: I think that's probably right. And they've been around for long enough, and they seem to dominate the market so much that I make a bet on that. Yeah. I think the dive watch deserves some credit too, for making people feel more comfortable with watches on straps in general, particularly more casual straps. Do you think that's a fair assessment, or is that just for watches in general and kind of the the move to more casual watches?
Johnny Brayson: Other watch styles were usually on straps. So like dress watches would typically be on leather straps. And then your field watches or whatever could have been on a nylon strap. Most dive watches, I think usually when sold, would be on a stainless steel bracelet. I think dive watches certainly helped popularize rubber straps, so that's definitely a category that would have been at one time seen as almost obscenely casual to have a piece of rubber strapped around your wrist. But dive watches? Yeah, they've certainly made that look more acceptable.
Ben Bowers: Last thing I wanted to touch on was are you a diver yourself, Johnny? And have you ever used the watch as their intended to be used?
Johnny Brayson: I am absolutely not a diver and I want everyone listening to know that you don't need to be a diver to wear a dive watch. It's it's a very important stipulation. Just like you don't need to be a pilot to wear a pilot's watch. It's a cool looking watch. It offers channel utility. I use it to time. Just Tostino’s Pizza Rolls. It's all good.
Ben Bowers: That's what a good tool watch is here for in modern times. And I will also name drop former GP writer and OG Jason Heaton, well known in the dive watch space who schooled me long ago. He's a pretty serious recreational diver that modern divers today often rely more on what they call dive computers for the actual measuring of diving than they do dive watches, although the watch is still certainly serve a purpose as well.
Johnny Brayson: Right? I mean, you got to have backup for your technology, right?
Ben Bowers: Exactly.