These days I had the opportunity to attend the presentation of the new Fifty Fathoms that Blancpain launched at the recent Time to Move 2019. Those who follow the RE account on Instagram.
You will have already seen the "incomparable setting" chosen for the occasion: an elegant chalet (chalet?) in the outskirts of Madrid, equipped - of course - with a swimming pool where some brave people were going to follow the instructions of the world record freediver and friend of the brand Gianlucca Genoni.
As some of you may know, Blancpain, in addition to its commitment to caring for the oceans and the connection of its own CEO Mark Hayek with everything related to the sea, has close ties to gastronomy. Among its ambassadors (at Blancpain they prefer to call them "friends of the brand") are none other than Dani García or Martín Berasategi, a whole constellation of stars. And also José Carlos Fuentes, responsible for the Allard Club and the lunch they offered us.
And if I tell all this it is not to cause envy or generate controversy, but to highlight the coherence of a brand that on the one hand remains faithful to its origins and on the other has evolved naturally towards what we could call "philosophy of life" in an epicurean sense of enjoying the best. It is worth remembering here that Blancpain once integrated the Frederique Piguet manufacture, a historic supplier of calibers to top brands.
Gianlucca, a big man of 1.85 with a rib cage worthy of study, has several world records in the different modalities of freediving. I don't know of anyone who has been there for eighteen minutes! holding your breath (even though you were previously breathing oxygen for ten). Or that he lasted two minutes in water at two degrees Celsius, in a lake located at the foot of Everest... Just imagining it makes me shiver. The most classic was descending to a depth of 160 meters using weight: as far as I know, this thing about freediving ends up becoming an obsession, if not a drug, due to the sensations it provokes in those who practice it. Well, this phenomenon gave us a series of instructions to try to even get close to those sensations. One of the participants arrived after two minutes and no, it wasn't me.
The watches. This presentation was only for Fifty Fathoms, so the Villerets but especially the Air Command will have to wait for another occasion. Two new features and two extensions. The extensions are the titanium and rose gold version of the classic Fifty Fathoms. Both use the caliber 1315 with - attention - 120 hours, five days, of power reserve thanks to its three barrels arranged in series. They also share a diameter of 45mm and a visible bottom, which does not prevent them from having a water resistance of 30 bars or 300 meters. The “sailcloth” strap is another common feature, as well as the fold-outs, each in its own material. Price in titanium: €14,800 Price in satin rose gold: €33,710
What they do not share is the material of the dial, which in the case of the rose gold model - satin, beautiful - is ceramic, something that makes it even more special given how complicated it is to handle thicknesses of tenths of a millimeter in that material.
One of the novelties pays tribute to the "nageurs", the French combat divers ("swimmers", actually) and the history that precedes them: when he came to the controls of Blancpain in 1950, Jean-Jacques Fiechter, who was also an amateur scuba diver, set out to develop an instrument that he could take with him on his dives. There were no precedents, so he started practically from scratch based on his own experience. In those years (1952) Captain Robert "Bob" Maloubier and Lieutenant Claude Riffaud, founders of the "Combat Swimmers" corps of the French military forces, established a list of standards so that different suppliers - French - could present them with a watch that served their purposes. Not having received anything that met all the points on the list, they learned of the existence of a Swiss man who made watches and who dived in the south of France...
In 1953, Blancpain was able to deliver to the French an instrument that passed all tests, becoming one of the essential components of the French army's combat swimmer team. Later it was also adopted by naval forces of other countries.
And this is the watch that Blancpain honors in the limited edition of 300 pieces. The French Navy has authorized the insignia of the Combat Swimmers to be placed on the back: a central anchor, dedicated to sailors, surrounded by two seahorses for the underwater universe and wings representing the paratroopers. At six o'clock a figure discreetly appears: 7. Given the risk that oxygen becomes toxic under a partial pressure of 1.7 bar, the maximum depth to which military divers can descend with pure oxygen (which was used this way to avoid bubbles that could give them away) is 7 meters, a figure to take into account. It has the caliber 1315 already described, with 120 hours of power reserve and a silicon hairspring that makes it practically non-magnetic. I don't have the price yet.
Barakuda, in addition to the name of a more or less ferocious fish, is that of a distributor of technical diving equipment that existed at the end of 1960 in Germany and that was the one who provided the Bundesmarine with the copies of Fifty Fathoms that were having such success among the military of neighboring France. But Barakuda also marketed a series for the "civilian market", with two-color indices, fluorescent pencil-type hands painted white, and a calendar at three o'clock.
And the limited edition of 500 pieces that Blancpain presents in 2019 is faithful to this model. In addition to the iconic Tropic-type strap, it mounts the caliber 1151 with 100 hours of power reserve and a unidirectional sapphire bezel and a visible caseback are added that the original did not have. Its diameter of 40.3 mm seems fair when one compares it with the 45 of the base Fifty Fathoms of the collection, but surely neither this nor the price (€13,290) will be an obstacle to it being sold out, like every year. You just have to take a look around the second-hand market to realize that Blancpain is a loyal collector: there are very few of them. (Indeed, this strap is not Tropic. It is a prototype.)
Coming soon, Air Command
Oh yes. The gastronomic experience. What to say. It's not about making anyone envious either, but the truth is that everything was enjoyed: the surroundings, the atmosphere, José Carlos Fuertes' explanations about a menu based on the sea and its products... and the wine pairing. I almost missed the train back.
More information at www.blancpain.com/es/coleccion-fifty-fathoms
And in the discussion on the forum, you always learn something new.
