For me, I guess I just like the 'rugged' look of them. They look chunky, masculine and purposful. And that very reason is probably why I'm not keen on 'dress' style watches... I find them too effeminate looking. As ever, just my personal opinion, and I do not intend to offend anyone with my view.

 

They look chunky, masculine and purposeful. And that very reason is probably why I'm not keen on 'dress' style watches... I find them too effeminate looking.

Goodness Roger -- I'll refrain from deeper consideration of those statements.

 

As @Roger the Dodger says the rugged look is also what appeals to me , they are a multi purpose watch which look good when worn with a shirt and tie or casual clothes.

Another plus for me is I have 8" wrist and dress type watches do not sit right yet most divers are spot on size for my wrist.

 

The design is generally modern and rugged. Bezel indices add a solid level of depth without getting in the way of the time telling.

I also think it has a lot to do with containing the dial. The challenge I have with non dive watches is they look like a dinner plate.

My OP is 36mm and I don't think I could bare it at 39mm.

I had a 40mm Ball Engineer Ohio which was a truly beautiful watch but it seemed oversized compared to the 36mm.

 

For me generally the rugged tool look and colour of dive watches make them first choice.

 

OAP's day out to Witherspoons..



Strangely, quite hard to find a Pornstar down here..

I find them too effeminate looking...

I'd never have guessed?

:biggrin:

 

A while ago, I hated bezels (I suppose I probably had a few bad experiences and it left me with a bad taste) but now I can live with them as they make great football timers.

In the past, I've had a couple of watches die through incidents involving water. I'm pretty sure that if they were dive watches they would have survived.

Now if I am going anywhere near water, I'll pop on a diver.. or when the football is about to start I'll wear a bezel.

They are just handy little waterproof timers.

 

I don't mind a diver but do prefer those with thinner bezels, for example I like the Blancpain Bathyscaphe but don't like the Fifty Fathom. However I think the compressor style with internal bezel is a great compromise.

 

I think, and I'm talking about the wider audience of watch fans rather than simply personal taste, but it's because they have a combination almost catch-all appeal.

As has been mentioned several times already, they align with a masculine look and appeal, not to say there are not ladies dive watches or that they don't appeal to the fairer sex, but the generally chunky look and often bold contrast of bezel framing the watch case, coupled with the mental link to the traditionally male domain of divers (industrial or military) immediately creates this mental link to manliness.

They also blur across a number of genres of watch, they can make a strong argument for obvious reasons to be a military inspired watch, are clearly a tool watch, and can also be classed as a sporty watch.

The gentleman spy trope even gives them a crossover appeal to be used as a dress watch alternative with more formal wear despite it clearly not being their original intended purpose.

They also have a degree of variety in design that fall within the wider dive watch genre, sit a sub (or you preferred sub-a-like) alongside a doxa, a panerai, one of the icon Seiko's (say a Tuna) and a skin diver and you a wide range of distinct looks all within one category.

Finally, unlike most watches that have a certain size range that most sit inside, we will see divers ranging across a huge differential in widths and depths, and even shapes, which again probably means that there is a diver that falls in (or close to) most watch nuts "sweet spot".

In summary, I think more than their ruggedness, it is their variety and flexibility that gives them such wide appeal.

That and something clicking to twiddle with during zoom meetings.

 

Well I like the rugged nature and clear easy to read dials. Oh and I started going to sea over 30 years ago.

 

I love dive watches. :yes:

What's not to like about that handy oven timer bezel...essential for getting your Aunt Bessie's frozen dinner items cooked to perfection

I use the term 'perfection' very loosely, I'm not sure the words 'Aunt Bessie's', and 'perfection' should be used in the same sentence.

 

I like the look of divers watches, I also like a chunky/weighty watch (& divers usually fit that bill) & the fact they're perceived - whether rightly or wrongly - to be tough, solid, well built & waterproof/water resistant.

I like other watches too & wear them semi-regularly but divers are my go to/daily type of watch :thumbs_up:

 

Put simply I just like the look of them personally :thumbsup:

 

I have absolutely no idea, in reality. I don't dive, my cooker has a timer that makes a noise when it's ready, so that beats any dive watch, and dive watches take up too much space under my shirts. So I have been subconsciously gulled by consumerism, I suppose the same could be said about GMT watches. :laughing2dw:

 

Recently I have decided I like divers for the following reasons

1. I find the bezel to actually be useful for timing food etc.

2. Great legibility day and night due to the lume

3. No concerns about water ( I live on the coast and did once accidentally dive into a pool wearing a normal watch )

4. I like cushion cases and the chunky style

But I think another factor is involved. Being retired, I virtually never wear a suit now, and I have to admit a chunky diver doesn't look great with smart clothes.

 

Bezel is a ridiculously simple timer, doesn't get simpler. Most on bracelets so last a lifetime basically, waterproof so drama free there. Look cool too.

By the time I work out how the stopwatch on my gshock works, after finding my glasses first as can't see the little numbers, the egg is done for, a rubber ball.

Everyone needs a divers watch.

 

Everyone needs a divers watch.

I agree, -- but I'm joshing your typo (sorry). Miriam Webster dictionary defines the word "divers" as manifold, multifarious, or myriad. Clearly everyone needs variety in their collection (apart from those sainted souls who collect black faced submariners -- they exist, really :jawdrop1: ).

Whether everybody needs a diver's watch is another debate. However even I own one (and I'm an complete failure when it comes to understanding the attraction of the things), so why not. It's like saying "every collector should have a Rolex", which is probably also a reasonable statement.

.

.

What's not to like about that handy oven timer bezel...essential for getting your Aunt Bessie's frozen dinner items cooked to perfection

Hasn't Alexa reached the more remote parts of these islands?

 

I was in the 'don't like divers' camp until last month.

Then I decided to take a gamble on a Hamilton Khaki Navy Scuba (yeah, I agree, to many words in the title!) and became a convert. I fits perfectly with smart casual and smart office, and is a gloriously weighty item on a beautiful bracelet. I will definitely be looking at others going forwards, but will remain firmly on the smart side of the dive watch camp.

 

Few reasons

1) I prefer the scratch resistance of a dice bezel compared to a polished version

2) I actually find the bezel as a really useful complication….I use it every day for timing things like meetings, cooking etc

3) I like the water resistance. While I don't dive with my watches, I shower and swim with them, plus always out hiking so if they get muddy i can wash them off without fear

 

We'll obviously all have our own specific reasons for how much we do, or don't, love dive watches.

Alot of the popularity in general is down to how perceptions have changed over the decades. Until the 1970s for most the gold dress watch was the symbol of sophistication and success and divers were tool watches for...divers...or 007....and if that wasn't your job, why would you wear one? That would be just plain silly, right? What's more people still did the gardening or washed the car on a Sunday morning wearing a three-piece suit and their gold dresswatch - the only watch they had.

In case you doubt me, just watch documentary films from the 1970s eg Metroland.

As dress became more casual, so too did acceptable watch styles coinciding with the rise and rise of the digital quartz watch for the masses and watches became cheaper and cheaper and Swatch came along in the 1980s and the prospect of having more than one watch no longer seemed daft. Funky styles became cool.

Dress-down Friday's came along in the 1990s...

New rough-and-tumble sports increased in popularity...

Extreme ironing on mountain tops became a thing... :laughing2dw:

Overlay the whole you-too-can-be-007, or at least pretend by wearing his Sub/Sea Master, thing and bingo the dive watch style has become the default style option. The Sub has become the design template, even if it's just a homage of the Fifty Fathoms (see what I did there @Bricey :laugh: :laugh: ).

For the great unwashed it's fashion..men's jewellery...and fashions change. 99.9% of people know the square root of zero about watches, as social media proves.

As ever it doesn't matter and we should just wear whatever we like in good health and peace :thumbsup:

 

Before I really understand what a dive watch was, the external bezel just made such watches more interesting. I have a few, but I have more than aren't dive watches. but generally fit in the catergory of sports watch.

 

When I was doing such things for a living, I had a chronograph for timing hydraulic flow, and setting the RPM on cement mixer drums, and other similar things. I have 3 dive watches, and I have never used the bezel for anything. I have several friends who have dive watches, and comment on how handy they are for cooking activities. Mainly for saying to their respective wives, "It's half past six, where's my dinner".

 

Wow, some of those posts have been above and beyond! So thanks to everyone who has contributed so far.

It seems that I'm pretty well in the minority, though I did sense a little fellow feeling - @yokel - and I'm actually happy to be in the minority. It's a peculiar trait of my character that I seem to have an obdurate desire not to have what everyone else seems to have, nor to want what everyone else seems to want.

The first major point that jumped out at me was to do with the word rugged. Rugged and masculine. Though I think it is possible to be completely masculine without being rugged. Think urbane and sophisticated. Think subtle. Think Cartier Tank. A Bond style submariner can certainly achieve this, but a Seiko diver can't; well, not in my opinion.

Sizes - yes, I know there are a whole variety of them. And bezels; I have watches with bezels but I like them to be narrow. A great big wide bezel cuts down the amount of dial area, and many dive watches also have big luminescent indices and rather fat luminescent hands, all of which appear to reduce the apparent size of the dial. I like my watches in general to be mainly dial, and the way to avoid the so-called dinnerplate is to have a smaller watch.

Cases - someone mentioned chunky and hefty. Not for me, overall I prefer slim and lightweight. The three watches I wear on bracelets all come in between 140 and 150 g. I had a CW GMT diver that came in at over 190 g and had a 43 mm case - I really struggled with that, even though I did like it. Found myself walking round in circles with my LH knuckles dragging on the floor!

Colours - I thought I liked colourful watches, but in terms of dials I seem to have coalesced into black, white, silver and blue. I have a little splash of orange in the GMT hand of my CW Sealander. I like white lumed hands on black and blue dials, and on the white and silver dials which tend to be the more dressy watches, I like blue hands and no lume anywhere. And I like gold, but only on small and discreet vintage watches.

Since retiring I don't have to wear a jacket and tie very often, but I still like wearing watches like the Cartier with very casual clothes. And I do like my colourful shirts, though I think @Roger the Dodger slightly outshines me in that department. Again, I'm perfectly happy to wear something like the Cartier or the Ulysse Nardin with a snappy shirt, shorts and flip-flops.

Someone said that every collection needs a dive watch. Well, I've got an old Orient Mako somewhere and I do have my Sealander which is not really a dive watch, despite having some of the characteristics. I could equally say that every collection needs a dress watch, but some would disagree.

Horses for courses. We like what we like. Fascinating to hear all the opinions, though. Thank you.

 

A Bond style submariner can certainly achieve this, but a Seiko diver can't; well, not in my opinion.

Omega or a Rolex dive watch wearing a tuxedo, :hmmm9uh: surely a dress watch is required for such an event...or should Mr Bond just have a Muff Diver watch on his wrist that were mentioned on another thread, after all Mr Bond was quite fond of Pussy

Galore.

I totally agree with what you said, but for me I would be a little conscious of wearing a dive watch in a social gathering requiring a suit or for example a wedding...unless I somehow had to rescue the catering department as Alexa could not sort out the timings of the Aunt Bessie's Yorkshire puddings :whistling:

 

I'm not a huge fan of fiv9e watches either, though I like the look in photos I've so far been pretty ambivalent when wearing. Part of that is I think I bought them too large to be fair. I want to try some 40mm or below versions as my one current diver with a bezel is vintage and smaller so wears ok and I do rather like it.

You don't need a diver to have decent water resistance or a rugged design (almost any military or field watch design has this in spades).

That said, I'm all for variety so my next buy is likely to be a funky microbrand design like the Isotope Will Return or similar to see if the smaller size works and add something interesting to the collection.

 

Makes me feel like James Bond.

Makes me feel more manly.

Makes me wish I could swim.

Actually, I don't know why really so let's just stick with the above :thumbsup:

 

Makes me feel like James Bond.

Makes me feel more manly.

Makes me wish I could swim.

Actually, I don't know why really so let's just stick with the above :thumbsup:

When I was in Hawai'i in 2019 ... I went diving ... with my Longines Conquest ... I left my "dive" watch in the UK ... imagine how I felt when I realised this ..... :swoon:

 

I've only ever gone swimming with one watch, I figured that if I planned to hit the pool on holiday I needed something that I didn't care about.

The perfect holiday pool beater (imho)

I paid £9.99, I have paid more for a watch battery. Yes it's as cheap as chips, but it is really funny how attached I am to this watch.

My proper dive watches...well I don't like to get them wet...that would be just silly wouldn't it. :yes:

 

I figured that if I planned to hit the pool on holiday I needed something that I didn't care about.

I get the logic, but there is a dilemma: when I go on holiday, which is my favourite thing to do, I like to take my favourite watches. Silly but there you are.

@JayDeep interesting analysis! You sound as though you have met Georgina the stable girl. When I go to the stables on Fridays we always have a roll in the hay at lunchtime.

It's not fair, she always grabs the cheese one.

 

I like some of them. Most of them just look all the same to me and pretty boring, but some really stand out.

I do wish there were more dress watches around though. Most of tge great looking dress watches cost an arm and a leg while all the rest look generic to me with very little in the middle.