© BLANCPAIN (HAYEK); © BLANCPAIN,
LAURENT BALLESTA (HAYEK UNDERWATER)
didn’t hear very well and somehow thought I was ready to
go—but I wasn’t. The rope was around my neck and I was being
pulled by the boat. Thankfully someone saw me struggling.”O
n a more Zen note, the simplicity of surfing is what
speaks to Alain Marhic, founder and CEO of the
1970s-style French watch brand March LA.B. Marhic
took up surfing after a childhood of sailing, kitesurfing and
windsurfing in Brittany. It was surfing’s fuss-free ease that
sealed it for him. “You basically have the surfboard in your
car, one pair of board shorts or wet suit and that’s it. You park
the car, check the waves, open your boot and in five minutes
you’re in the water.” And his watch of choice? March LA.B’s
chunky, diving-watch style Belza, launched earlier this year
and water-resistant to 200m.
Speaking of diving, the aquatic sport naturally has its share
of watch CEO fans. Hublot’s Ricardo Guadalupe is fond of
the Maldives (which he complements with bodysurfing in
France’s Arcachon and wakeboarding on Lake Geneva), as
is Matthias Breschan of Rado, a Captain Cook on his wrist,
whose favourite dive spot is also in the Maldives’ Lhaviyani
atoll. Meanwhile Marc A. Hayek has clocked more than
1,000 dives since starting as a precocious 12-year-old and
today excels in closed-circuit rebreather diving for extended,
“more discrete dives, racking up his dive numbers in Swiss
lakes and rivers, the Med, Southeast Asia, the Maldives and
the Caribbean.” But his all-time top spot is the diving mecca
Tiputa Pass, in French Polynesia, swimming alongside
dolphins, hammerhead sharks and manta rays, equipped, as
always, with his Blancpain Fifty Fathoms to measure each
and every second. Meanwhile, Georges Kern—who straps
on his Breitling Superocean Héritage II Chronograph 44Outerknown, which comes with a special
upcycled NATO-style strap partly made
from recovered fishing nets—likens diving to “f lying in water”.
For more than a decade, Kern has been drawn to the sport’s
sense of freedom and “compelling silence”, even if it is all-
consuming, both physically and timewise. “Diving can be
exhausting so it’s best not to schedule anything afterwards,”
he advises. “Rest, recover, and enjoy a great meal!”
The founder of French watchmaker Reservoir nearly died
scuba diving with basic equipment in 1986 when, at 30m deep
in the French Caribbean, near Guadeloupe, he ran out of air.
But that hardly deterred François Moreau and he credits the
experience for making him “manometer obsessed”, and
which partly explains why his signature retrograde minute
and jumping hour watches are so inspired by measuring
instruments (cue his Hydrosphere Air Gauge diver with a super
graphic and legible white dial). A fan of night and wreck diving
(“I want to know what happened to the ship—and also like
going inside and discovering the instruments”), his all-time
favourite diving memory is the freshwater Yucatán Peninsula
cenote caves in Mexico, famous for their stalactites and tree
roots sprouting from rocks. Diving there is done by flashlight,
which Moreau describes enticingly: “The purity of the water,
quietness and clarity combined with the light—all blue and
green shades—is absolutely poetic.”
But not all CEOs have to burn off steam in far-f lung
destinations with adrenalin-pumping aquatic adventures.
For de Grisogono’s Céline Assimon, the trusty pool inflatable
works wonders. “I absolutely enjoy ‘me time’ on the unicorn
float,” she says. “It’s by far my favourite aquatic activity at
the family house in Sorrento, Italy, and with friends in the
© BLANCPAIN (HAYEK); Hamptons.” Enough said.
© BLANCPAIN, LAURENT BALLESTA (HAYEK UNDERWATER)
Marc A. Hayek
The Blancpain President and CEO
(right) on expedition Gombessa II,
diving on the Fakarava atoll in French
Polynesia. Above: the Blancpain Fifty
Fathoms watchFrançois Moreau
The CEO and founder of Reservoir is
“manometer obsessed” following an
incident when he ran out of air in 1986 in
the French Caribbean. Below: the Reservoir
Hydrosphere BlackfinAUTUMN 2019 VANITY FAIR ON TIME 75