Teddy Baldassarre
Blancpain Fifty Fathoms 38mm Review
Blancpain is the world’s most historic luxury watchmaker, with nearly 300 years of uninterrupted production. It’s also largely credited with establishing the blueprint of all modern diving watches with its Fifty Fathoms. The formula for the undeniably iconic collection has been largely unfussed with since it forever changed the watch world in 1953. But in recent years, we’ve seen the brand more willing to evolve with the times and expand its staple diver to be more wearable, and more appealing, so a broader scope of watch wearers. The most significant evidence of this change has been the introduction of the most scaled-down take on the line at 38.2mm last year, answering the call for more versatile sizing that many enthusiasts (especially those, like me, with smaller wrists) had been rallying for for years. Down below, I’m going to walk you through why this is such a big deal for this icon of watch history, the key details of the scaled-down Fifty-Fathoms, and some food for thought to keep in mind before trying it on yourself. [toc-section heading="History and Context"] Given that we have a complete guide to the Fifty Fathoms collection on our site already, I’m going to keep this section as quick and to the point as I can. I’m also going to hone in on the Automatique sub-collection, as it's the most relevant to our purposes here, and has the most verisimilitude to the original diving archetype in its design language. Though many brands were experimenting wi...
