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The Swatch x Blancpain Bioceramic Scuba Fifty Fathoms Ocean of Storms celebrates a different kind of ocean
News
The Swatch x Blancpain Bioceramic Scuba Fifty Fathoms Ocean of Storms celebrates a different kind of ocean
A few months ago, Swatch and Blancpain teamed up for the second instalment of Swatch’s wildly successful bioceramic collaborative series, the Svuba Ffity Fathoms. The initial collection offered five colourways inspired by the oceans of the world and has been wildly popular, just like the Moonswatch.
Of course, we expected more iterations of this Swatch-ified take on the iconic Fifty Fathoms, but we expected another marine-inspired design. Instead, we got the moon. Specifically, we got the Bioceramic Scuba Fifty Fathoms Ocean of Storms, named after the Oceanus Procellarum, the moon’s biggest ‘sea’, which covers about 2 million square kilometres of the lunar surface. It’s a smart take on the ‘ocean’ theme, and the watch has an unsurprisingly bold look.
The decorated casebook of the Swatch x Blancpain Bioceramic Scuba Fifty Fathoms Ocean of Storms.
The case, dial, bezel and strap of this bioceramic Blancpain x Swatch are black — like the darkness of space. All the other pertinent details, from the dial text to the stripes on the recycled NATO strap, are white, giving this watch a stark and striking feel that is at some distance from the rainbow tones of the earlier models. Colour aside, everything else is fundamentally the same: the 42.3mm wide by 14.4mm tall case gives the watch plenty of presence, and the movement is still the famously machine-assembled Sistem 51 with 90 hours of power reserve. The movement itself is decorated with an illustration detailing the Ocean of Storms. There’s also an image of the Okenia Luna, a nudibranch (or sea slug) named for the lunar ocean, which might seem odd, but it’s a thematic link to the rest of the collection.
If the Swatch x Blancpain Fifty Fathoms follows the trajectory of the Moonswatch (which is safe to assume), this will be the first of many additions to the collections. But while the Moonswatch updates seem to have been focused around slight variations on the theme, this Ocean of Storms model gives us something we suspect a lot of people will want. A versatile black watch that still manages to capture the wrist appeal and cool factor of the collab without being quite so attention-seeking on the wrist.
The Swatch x Blancpain Bioceramic Scuba Fifty Fathoms Ocean of Storms boasts a Bioceramic buckle and NATO strap made from recycled fishing nets.
Tech Specs
Swatch x Blancpain Bioceramic Scuba Fifty Fathoms Ocean of Storms
Movement: Sistem51, automatic, 90 hours of power reserve
Functions: Hours, minutes, seconds, date
Case: 42.3 x 14.4mm black Bioceramic, water-resistant to 91M
Dial: Sunbrushed black
Strap: NATO strap made from recycled fishing nets. Black Bioceramic pin buckle and loops
Availability: At selected Swatch stores from January 11
