SKU: 24551
Quantity selected exceeds current stock
WHAT WE LOVE:
Blancpain is the oldest watchmaking name in continuous existence, dating to 1735, and the Fifty Fathoms — first produced for the French Navy's combat divers in 1953 — holds the genuine claim to being the world's first commercially available modern dive watch. The Bathyscaphe Day-Date "Desert" Edition takes that diving heritage and reframes it entirely, drawing inspiration from a rare 1970s Day-Date diver while building a colour story around arid landscape rather than ocean depth.
The sand-coloured sunburst dial is the entire concept made visible. Subtly graduated across its surface — lighter toward the centre, deepening toward the edge — it shifts in tone as light moves across it, evoking the colour transitions of desert terrain under changing sun. Bold rectangular hour indices and Super-LumiNova-filled hands provide the high-contrast legibility a genuine dive watch demands, while the silver chapter ring with Arabic five-minute markers adds a layer of vintage detail that connects this watch directly to its 1970s inspiration. The day and date display at 3 o'clock — a complication that appeared on relatively few Fifty Fathoms references historically, making this lineage genuinely uncommon within Blancpain's own catalogue — adds practical daily utility without disrupting the dial's considered restraint.
The unidirectional bezel pairs satin-brushed steel with a brown ceramic insert, and the hour markers are executed in Liquidmetal — a proprietary amorphous metal alloy that bonds at a molecular level with the ceramic surface, producing markings that will never fade, chip, or wear regardless of years of exposure. At 43mm with a 14.25mm case height, the watch carries real wrist presence. Designed for genuine outdoor use, completes a watch that commits fully to its desert concept from case to wrist. Limited to 500 pieces worldwide.
WHAT'S INSIDE:
The 5052-1146-E52A is powered by Blancpain's in-house Calibre 1315DD — a self-winding movement of 37 jewels and 281 components, beating at 28,800 vibrations per hour and delivering an exceptional power reserve of 120 hours, achieved through three stacked mainspring barrels.
FIVEFORTYFIVE SIX MONTHS WARRANTY
