Talking about watches and inspiration can spawn some pretty interesting debates, and for good reason – especially in the dive watch category. Of course, early dive watches weren’t “inspired by” anything; dive watches were tools created with a very distinct purpose. That said, as the years went on and the dive watch category moved away from practical utility towards desirable daily-wearers, design inspiration soon came into play. Today we’re looking at luxury watches inspired by the ocean, and digging into the stories behind the creation of each piece and how they relate to the big blue beyond.As mentioned above, there is no reason to go into a Rolex Submariner history lesson here; however, the Rolex Sea-Dweller Deepsea with D-Blue dial (a variant of the original Deepsea that was first unveiled in 2008) has a very distinct connection to our world’s deepest waters.The origins of this piece come from Rolex’s involvement in (read: sponsorship of) James Cameron’s deep dive into the Mariana Trench. Though not limited in production, the piece is commemorative of the 2012 dive, and features a gradient blue to black dial that mimics the loss of light as one descends into the ocean’s depths. Additionally, the green chosen for the DEEPSEA text on its dial is matched to the color of Cameron’s Deepsea Challenger Submarine that took a prototype Rolex watch all the way down into the trench affixed to one of its robotic arms.The legacy of Jacques-Yves Cousteau is unparalleled in the world of underwater exploration, and many years ago (back in 2004 to be precise), IWC decided to become a partner of the Cousteau Society – a non-profit organization looking to continue the initiatives set out by Jacques-Yves several decades prior. From the onset of the partnership, IWC has included special limited-edition Aquatimer models in their collections, with a portion of the proceeds of each watch headed towards the organization.Of their bigger undertakings, Cousteau’s famed research vessel (named ‘Calypso’) was raised from the sea floor after sinking on account of an incident in Singapore in 1996. Progress on Calypso has been slow-going, and a fire on the ship while docked in Turkey two years ago has slowed things further. Naturally, there are rumors swirling that a redesign of the IWC Aquatimer line across the board will appear in conjunction with the vessel’s unveiling.
The case is fully made of black ceramic, it is a pioneering work Omega made in their Planet Ocean. The case is brushed, while the edge of lugs is polished, seeing the side, the case has a graceful arc shape. The bezel uses high grade black ceramic with silver engravings. The case back is see-through sapphire crystal, VS factory developed Omega-patented Naiad Lock system, you only need to rotate the case back a bit to lock it perfectly. Check the case back, there are unique engravings on three lugs.The dial is black, which is made of real ceramic Zr02, this is the high gloss black dial that is exact 1:1 imitation of original. The dial has a correct hand stack, hour markers and hands have silver edge and are applied with white lume material, the dial has two different lume colors, hour markers and hour hand will emit strong blue light, minute hand will emit strong green light in the dark. On the outer dial, there are 24-hour gmt markers, GMT hand in the center has an orange triangle mark that is also filled with luminescence. This Deep Black Planet Ocean is a GMT watch, if Omega makes a full ceramic Planet Ocean without GMT function, that will be very popular.
