Due to the traditional dive watch design and to its ability to evoke turquoise blue seas and deep reef dives, this luxury watch will certainly help to kill your winter blues. If you’re about to go snorkeling in the great barrier reef, or sea diving in the any ocean paradise, you maybe shouldn’t consider the new Jaeger-LeCoultre Deep Sea Vintage Chronograph. You don’t need to be a great diver to wear this watch, In fact, you don’t need to be a diver at all, because The Deep Sea Vintage Chronograph is not a diving watch! It has a fixed bezel, and it is water-resistant only to 10 bars (100m).But it makes a serious statement lying on your wrist beach side.

This watch seems quite simple. It looks very sporty, but has a gorgeous vintage flavor, and the black on stainless on calfskin leather makes a bold statement. It is masculine, but not alike the enormous monsters people wear today. The case measures 40.5mm which is a very appropriate size for this style. I love that it is tribute to the original Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox Deep Sea, one of the first diving watches ever purposed. Only 1,061 models were made in 1959.

1959 Deepsea Memovox

It breathes the 50s aesthetics. The indices, hour and minute hands are finished with an orange-tinted Superluminova coating that matches the luminescence of the Memovox Deep Sea. The crystal is plexiglass just like all of those vintage pieces, and the back of the case wears the same engraving as the original, a diver swimming among bubbles.

Its technical specs have nothing to do with 1950s technology. The deep-sea chrono is powered by JLC’s calibre 751G. This movement has 65 hours of power reserve. It is a nicely embellished in-house model with 37 jewels beating at 28,800 bph.  The new Deep Sea Vintage Chronograph was introduced in 2012 at Salon international de la Haute Horlogerie of Geneva.

Reverso

Jaeger-LeCoultre has produced many popular models that have made them a watch maker to be noticed. Among them it the famous Reverso, which the watch face will flip and hide in its case. They also have a very rich histoy in the watch industry. Currently part of the Richmont group along with a number of high-end brands, they were founded in 1833 by Antoine LeCoultre. They designed some very attractive wrist watches and pocket watches with some dynamic in-house movements. They also created the Atmos mechanical clock manufactured by Jaeger-LeCoultre, which does not need to be wound. It derives energy from small temperature changes and atmospheric pressure changes in the environment, and can run for years without human intervention.

Atmos Clock

Unfortunately, if you like this one, you will have to save a few pennies. Like most tf JLC’s models it’s a bit spendy. Rumors that this will start at $10,000 are probably pretty accurate, But if you can swing that, well then this watch certainly is …swell.