Girard-Perregaux’s Deep Diver, brought back to life as a collaboration with Bamford Watch Department, is more than just another cute archive find.
The original dates from the late 1960s and early 1970s, a period that has been entertaining vintage collectors for years, bringing a pop of colour and sunshine that’s a refreshing change from the carefully inoffensive palettes more generally on offer. This new watch is beautifully realised, with its key details drawn from the original but re-engineered and updated for now.
The Deep Diver comes from a moment of confidence and technical ambition in the watch industry that saw groundbreaking developments on the movement side. It was matched with an ebullience of design that was the polar opposite of the minimalism of the (Omega) Speedmaster and (Rolex) Daytona. Out went a simple case, hand-wound movements and pared-back, monochrome dials and in came chunky cases, hot colours, lots of luminous tritium and, for the Deep Diver, a high-tech, 5Hz self-winding movement (as now seen in Rolex’s new Land-Dweller) and a rotating inner bezel.
The Girard-Perregaux and Bamford watch is an update not a copy, while key details, such as the 14-sided inner bezel that would later appear on the Laureato, and the boxy typography, are all correct and present. There is a polished titanium case, rubber straps that wick away moisture, blue-glowing SuperLumiNova and Girard-Perregaux’s current workhorse, the GP03300 calibre, as well as a very subtle Bamford signature on the dial. While it’s not a true compressor case, the water-resistance is rated at 200m – or pool-resistant to 20 bar as the caseback says (founder George Bamford was insistent that the Deep Diver is pool-safe, and it even comes with a pool-themed presentation box).
Given the positive reception the Deep Diver has already won and the sell-out of Girard-Perregaux's reinterpretation of the 1976 digital Casquette watch, it looks like archive finds are bringing much-needed visibility to a brand that really ought to be competing with the likes of Jaeger-LeCoultre and Audemars Piguet.
This watch is limited to 350 pieces and is available at Goldsmiths at £12,900 in the UK, and Watches of Switzerlandat $15,100 in the US
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