lancpain’s new Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe lives up to its name. This avant-garde diver’s watch evokes the exceptional properties of the underwater craft designed by Auguste Piccard to explore the abyss. Alongside the key technical characteristics of the Bathyscaphe models renowned for their reliability and versatility, this creation features a titanium case, a first in the current line descended from the original Fifty Fathoms.

Blancpain is no novice in the use of this metal, which it already incorporated during the early 1960s into a special series of MILSPEC II models made for US Navy bomb disposal teams. A pioneer in the field of diver’s watches since the 1953 launch of the Fifty Fathoms representing the first of its kind, Blancpain has also been trailblazer in the use of innovative materials for its timepiece production.

Titanium is a reliable ally of diver’s watches, offering numerous advantages including high resistance to shock, pressure and corrosion. In addition, this metal boasts a low density makingnit particularly light and comfortable to wear. Measuring 43 mm in diameter and water-resistant to 30 bar (approximately 300 metres), the sharply contoured case of the new Bathyscaphe is made of satin-finished grade 23 titanium.

This high-end titanium rarely used in the watch industry requires substantial machining work that is extremely challenging. The anthracitecoloured dial features a hand-crafted vertical satin finish creating a resolutely modern matt effect, enhanced by the Bathyscaphe’s traditional luminescent baton-type hands and geometric hour-markers, as well as a satin-finished titanium bezel with a satin-finished ceramic insert and a Liquidmetal™ time scale.

Technical and precision timekeeping feats are the order of the day for this new Bathyscaphe equipped with in-house Calibre 1315, a benchmark in the field of sports watches. Born of along quest for accuracy and performance, this self-winding movement with a five-day power reserve notably features a silicon balance-spring rendering it totally insensitive to magnetic fields. It is also distinguished by the high level of finishing visible through the transparent sapphire caseback, where snailed and chamfered bridges rub shoulders with a sandblasted, satin-finished and snailed gold oscillating weight.

This new model comes fitted with a NATO or anthracite sailcloth strap, or a grade 23 satinfinished titanium bracelet. The design of the latter is identical to those fitted on Fifty Fathoms models – a first for a Bathyscaphe timepiece.

The use of grade 23 titanium affords numerous finishing possibilities that influence the colour nuances of the material. As well as being a worthy heir to a well-established family, the new Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe in titanium also charts a course towards new horizons, buoyed as ever by the ocean and its countless currents.