One need only look at the frenzy that every new H&M x Guest Designer capsule collection causes to know that collaborations can, and do, successfully work. The same can be said of the partnerships that Swatch has forged with its sister Swatch Group watch brands. Not only did the 2022 release of the MoonSwatch with Omega draw huge crowds and cause ridiculously long lines to form outside Swatch boutiques across the globe (who wouldn’t want to get their hands on a legitimate homage timepiece at 1/20th at the cost?), the watches have come to be regarded as a collector’s novelty that sparks high-brow conversations about the merits (and demerits) of each subsequent release.
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A little over a year later and a new Swatch collaboration was released in September 2023. This time, in the form of Blancpain’s beloved Fifty Fathoms scuba diving watch, which caused Blancpain fans to pull out their credit cards to partake in the history-making event. Having dedicated that initial launch to the world’s five oceans, the latest Blancpain x Swatch watch looks to the world’s lagoons for inspiration, resulting in a vibrantly blue-hued timepiece, complete with a new lagoon-dwelling sea slug (the Tambja Mullineri nudibranch) which can be seen through the sapphire caseback.
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Other outstanding design features of the watch include its textured dial that graduates to a darker tone at its periphery—all the better to contrast with the Super-LumiNova hour markers and three time-telling hands —as well as its NATO-styled fabric strap that has been repurposed from recycled fishing nets. Equipped with Swatch’s nifty SISTEM51 mechanical movement (a 51-component mechanical movement that promises a 90-hour power reserve), this 42.3mm watch, as with the rest of the watches in this collaborative series, is crafted from bioceramic, a material resulting from the marriage of ceramic and biosourced material derived from castor oil.