February 2020 fortune magazine has a cool article about divers. I should say on first two pages has a nice ad for Patek Philippe annual calendar chronograph very nice looking watch. Anyway the article attributes size of watches expanding to “quarter size” to an oversized 38mm with 1964 Rolex Submariner ref 6538 and how Sean Connery wearing it in goldfinger changed things. It also mentions Blancpain fifty fathoms and Doxa diver.

I found the article interesting as I was recently pondering when watches evolved from 30mm-35mm as common to what we see now. Basically says 1990’s brought about the popularity of dishsize watches in boardrooms. Anyway I can’t attest to the article being accurate in the “growth” of watches but it’s an interesting read. I subscribe to fortune but it hasn’t helped me gain one yet.

 

I would like to read it. Clearly watches were smaller before the 60s, but many dive watches were fairly large right from the beginning of true dive watches in the late 50s and early 60s. It’s not like there were small dive watches in the 40s, since there weren’t dive watches then.

Or maybe that’s the point of the article. That to make watches waterproof, cases became larger, starting a style that gradually spread to non dive watches as well.

Sorry, I’m a little punchy tonight, my flight has been delayed 4 hours. After two hours of technical problems we got a new plane. We finally pushed back but had to return to the gate after de icing to deal with a customer problem. Then our flight crew timed out so we had to wait for a new one.

 

Worry not sir, I’m punchy every night. The article did mention dive watches getting bigger in world war 2 but I think the point was more about them leaving the “tool” watch category and becoming fashionable. Perhaps it’s debatable I’m just getting it from the article.