Vanity Fair UK - 10.2019

T

his single piece of

equipment, which

would come to be

called the “Aqua-Lung” (a term

coined by Cousteau for English-

speaking countries), gave rise to

modern scuba diving. Divers

could now plunge deeper and stay

longer than ever before, yet the

question of how much longer

remained imperative. Untold

revelations awaited in the ocean’s

mysterious depths—so long as

underwater explorers could keep

track of time. A new era of

innovation in the field of diving

timepieces swiftly ensued.

A Brief History of Time

The history of the diving watch is

relatively short. It was only in

1943—when Jacques Cousteau

and Émile Gagnan developed a

self-contained breathing device

with a demand regulator—that

diving’s restrictive cord to the

surface was triumphantly cut

Diving Watches

Above: French

naval officer and

underwater

explorer Jacques

Cousteau, often

refe rred to a s th e

“father of scuba

diving”

AUTUMN 2019 VANITY FAIR ON TIME

LUIS MARDEN/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IMAGE COLLEC

TION (COUSTEAU, INDIAN OCEAN, 1956)

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