Has the dive watch reached peak saturation? It's a fair question – and a poor pun – as almost every brand has a dive watch of some form currently available, with many companies offering a number of variations on the theme. While there's no doubt that watch enthusiasts are downright spoiled for choice these days, having a wide variety of dive watches on the market can only be a good thing, as it means there's a multitude of alternatives for collectors of all calibers. That's why we're happy to present six new options from Longines and Oris for your consideration. Drawing from three separate collections within each brand's catalog, all six watches offer a robust level of water resistance at a relatively accessible price point.
Oris is perhaps best known for its outstanding quality-to-value ratio, but one of the brand's least discussed attributes is its unique treatment of color. While blue and green dials still have a major presence in Oris's various collections, the specific hues the company's designers work with are what make each watch stand out. Take, for instance, this mint green-to-grey gradient Aquis that was released back in March at Baselworld. Instead of riffing on the classic, verdant tone that calls to mind leafy foliage or a certain Marvel superhero, Oris changes things up with a paler color that evokes a retro design without relying on the past for inspiration.
The Aquis is Oris's most popular collection and is the brand's modern interpretation of a diver, available in a wide range of colors and sizes as well as with a number of complications. This pastel-hued design with date is water resistant to 300m, has a tungsten bezel insert, and a highly legible dial thanks to the lume-filled baton hands and generous coating of anti-reflective material on the double-domed crystal. Available on either a stainless steel three-link bracelet with a folding clasp or a matching leather strap in grey, this new Aquis is distinctive without being over the top.
Side-by-side with the Longines Legend Diver 36mm Black Dial (right) and one of its vintage inspirations, a Longines Diver reference 7150-2 from 1965 (left).
Switching gears, the Longines Legend Diver is a well-executed re-edition of the brand's ref. 7042, a highly sought-after dive watch from the early 1960s that featured a Super Compressor case with an interior rotating bezel controlled by a crown at two o'clock. This ingenious design – where the caseback would squeeze tighter against its gasket seal as pressure increased during a diver's descent, thereby enhancing the watch's water resistance – was originally sourced from Ervin Piquerez, a renowned casemaker who patented the construction in 1956. In 2007, Longines introduced the Legend Diver, an almost exact replica of the brand's early dive watches (check out the above image for a comparison of a Longines dive watch from 1965 next to the latest version of the Legend Diver). Following its wide-ranging success over the past 12 years, Longines has released a number of additional variations, including the two watches we're looking at today.
The now-available pair, with either an authentic black dial or an eye-catching mother-of-pearl dial, stand out due to their size. At only 36mm, the timepieces are actually a total of 6mm smaller than the original ref. 7042. When these watches were released in 2018, our own Cara Barrett noted that while the new sizing was a choice likely determined by marketing to appeal to the female demographic, the two watches would look great on practically everyone, a statement that remains true today.
Wrapping up this Shop update is a duo of Divers Sixty-Five from Oris with a distinct two-tone twist. The Hölstein-based brand has made experimenting with bronze one of its defining characteristics in recent years, and 2019 has proven to be no exception, with a number of bronze-laced models being released. Among that selection is the Sixty-Five 'Bico' – short for bicolor – a watch that, with a dark blue dial recalling the depths of the ocean, enhances the two-tone effect found on the company's previous sports-oriented watches. Specced to 100m of water resistance and featuring the option of either a bracelet with center links made of bronze or a leather strap, this is, in our opinion, one of the more compelling timepieces to utilize a two-tone design in recent years. The best part? A price that lands at slightly more than $2,000.
Head on over to the HODINKEE Shop – where the water is fine year-round – to learn more about the latest updates to our dive watch selection.