A Week On The Wrist: The Tudor Black Bay Fifty-Four
The Tudor Black Bay Fifty-Four is a watch that I have been unwittingly waiting for since my entry into the watchverse. Let me explain because if you know me and have even just an elementary understanding of my taste in watches, then the idea of me wishing for a modern Tudor is, well, the furthest thing possible from reality. So while I wasn’t necessarily waiting for a Tudor dive watch in 37mm to fall from the watch heavens, I was hoping for a modern tool watch that met my (what I consider to be) not particularly demanding requirements: Robust, sporty-looking, 36-38mm in diameter – and the most important part: Well designed and cool-looking enough for me to actually consider wearing outside of the office or anywhere that is not a watch event.
I have never had any sort of emotional pull towards Tudor in its modern era. It has always felt very off-limits to me. Very man-who-likes-to-use-his-tool-watches-as-prescribed. There was no glamor, there was no zing. And while the BB58 (at 39mm) is a great, versatile watch, it’s a touch too big for my liking. I just couldn’t lean into the BB58 on a personal level, despite knowing it would make an excellent choice for other women who were seeking a similar sort of sporty satisfaction.
I like a 36-37mm size range for tool watches. I prefer that middle ground where it has presence and a good amount of weight, but that doesn’t engulf my whole wrist and make it all about the watch. Usually, with watches, I am looking for a final flourish, not a focal point.
I have a 36mm Explorer ref. 112470, and I wear it every day, literally (Okay, except for days when I wear the Serpenti, but you get it). I consider it perfect. But the search for a modern tool watch with a more overtly utilitarian feel was seemingly impossible. I needed something with a bezel (so that I could try to time things like optimal matcha boiling temperature and other totally normal stuff) and something that looked tool-ish from across the room. I wanted to be part of the tool watch club!
Sometimes, when I’m feeling really loose, I dream about Rolex releasing 37mm Submariners, then I remember to get real, and so I think about vintage 36mm Tudor Submariners. And then I remember the 37mm Yacht-Master. And then there are 33mm Tudor Mini-Subs. I simply cannot write an entire article about a vintage-inspired Tudor dive watch without mentioning Mini-Subs. I adore Mini Subs, and they remain very well-priced. I have been contemplating purchasing one for the better part of a year, and every night when I pray (in vain) to the watch gods that Rolex will make a smaller Sub, I think about alleviating my small Rolex-shaped hole with a Tudor Mini-Sub. But baby divers are a different genre of watch. A baby diver from the ’90s rattles; it’s loose and free; it’s almost toy-like. And while I am happy to slip on a TAG Heuer baby diver and become Cameron Diaz for the day, if I’m being real I just want something that feels heavy and substantial and makes me feel powerful.
I actually didn’t pay much attention to the BB54 when it was first released at Watches & Wonders back in April. I sort of shrugged off the news in my haze of trade show fatigue until Ben, James, Danny and myself sat down to debrief the first day of the show on Hodinkee Radio. The boys initially seemed to find the release sort of perplexing. Was there any need for a Black Bay in 37mm? Who was this watch for?
That’s when it clicked. Tudor had just started a revolution. This watch was for me, and all of the other women who are constantly searching for something smaller without heinously ill-thought-out gender distinctive markers like pink dials and diamond bezels. A watch that was bound to get attention given the success of the BB58 and the appetite for Tudor’s ability to produce extremely well-executed, vintage-inspired dive watches. But also a watch that could potentially open up an entire conversation around smaller-size tool watches and push for an agenda to create more.
No, I do not believe this more democratically sized watch was intentionally designed to bring women into the fold. If anything it made sense for Tudor to create a Black Bay with true historical proportions given the current enthusiast appetite for such things. But the 37mm diameter just naturally opens up the playing field. I almost prefer that it has entered into my orbit without making noise about being specifically for women. It feels more earnest. Now the marketing of said watch leaves more to be desired but, you know, baby steps.
A Week On The Wrist
I first tried on the BB54 back on home turf, post W&W, without the noise of other people’s opinions, so that I could have a quiet moment to instinctually react on my own terms. I slipped her on and fastened up her shiny new T-fit clasp (which, similar to Rolex’s Glidelock, allows for micro-adjustments), and boom, there it was; the surge of adrenaline you feel when you are truly committed to this hobby and you try on a watch, and it causes an actual physical sensation. Maybe that’s just me? Anyway, the lightning bolt thing happened but in a more measured and grown-up way to what I experience when I try on things that are totally out of my reach (like diamond-set Serpentis). It was like everything I had asked for had come full circle. The watch gods had delivered. A dive watch without being a Deepsea Planet Ocean atrocity!
So we have a 37mm x 11.24mm (46mm lug to lug) Black Bay Fifty-Four, which is called a Fifty-Four because back in 1954 Tudor launched ref. 7922, the Tudor Oyster Prince Submariner, the brand’s first dive watch. It’s interesting to note that the watch was available to the public but not printed in the catalog. The ref. 7924 big crown was launched in 1958 (hence BB58) and was also commercially available, but again, not printed in the catalog. The first Tudor Submariner to be printed on a pamphlet was actually the 7928.
If you ask Tudor, the vintage inspiration for my beloved BB54 is the 7922. If you take a little deep dive into the history books, it becomes apparent that there are elements of the rarer and arguably more interesting 7923 – a sibling reference to the 7922 with a manually-wound movement, the only manually-wound Sub from Tudor or Rolex, ever. Made a few years later, roughly 1956/57, the 7923 featured straight writing on the dial rather than smiley “self-winding” because, well, it wasn’t self-winding. In place of the “ROTOR”, “SELF-WINDING” indications inscribed at 6 o’clock, the dial bore the epithets “SUBMARINER” and “SHOCK-RESISTING” and the hands used were pencil shaped as opposed to the Mercedes hands used on first-generation Submariners.
Tudor has already referenced the more mythical manual-wound 7923 with its 2015 Only Watch. And, in a way, the BB54 is as much an evolved version of that 2015 piece unique and a reference to the 7923, which is of course inspired by the earlier 7922.
The BB54’s real power lies in the fact that it has a truly vintage feel with a thoroughly modern movement. It comes equipped with Manufacture Caliber MT5400, which displays hour, minute, and second functions and has a healthy 70-hour power reserve. And even though it’s vintage-inspired, there is a distinct lack of “fake patina vibe.” Obviously, everybody’s initial inclination is to make a straight comparison to the BB58 – a hugely successful watch for Tudor. And even though these two watches are extremely similar, there is a lot more to compare than just differences in size. The BB54 is much slimmer and cleaner than the 58. The hash marks are gone (making it slightly harder to time things), there is no red triangle at 12, the crown is significantly smaller, andit has less gilt accenting, which makes it more cool-toned, while the dial is no longer matte but a glossy satin finish.
I hear through the Hodinkee office grapevine that this is a real point of contention amongst dive watch enthusiasts. But the majority tend to lean matte. I am new to this tool watch game, though so I will openly tell you that I like the glossy (and my Explorer 114270 agrees). But if I am in the minority, then why would Tudor (and every other brand that produces matte dials it seems) eventually stop producing matte dials? Does this glossy dial watch brand consortium denote strong virtue signaling as a luxury product? Because the smart move is to stay true to your roots and give the people matte dials if they want matte dials. Or does Tudor’s use of a glossy dial on the BB54 mean Tudor is becoming less of a tool watch-focused brand and more of a luxury-driven brand?
Let’s be real, if you’re creating a dive watch in 2023 that is 37mm, even if it has a 200m depth rating, you are not making this watch for diving. It’s very compact which one would presume then renders it mostly illegible under water. So perhaps this watch is the next phase of Tudor’s evolution into a different kind of brand? But wouldn’t we rather have Tudor do one thing and Rolex do another?
And what about the rivets? YES, the Black Bay Fifty-Four still has the faux-rivets on the side of the bracelet. Do I care? I do not. Did I even notice them? I did not. Okay, good talk.
The BB54 just feels that little bit more refined. It’s a play on Tudor’s first actual watch which is inherently cool as an idea, and they managed to stay true to the original design tenets without making it look scary faux-vintage.
Whatever direction Tudor is headed in (do I smell a Ranger in 35 or 36 fast approaching) it’s certainly filling a gap that I was struggling to fill prior to its release.
The Competition
TAG Heuer Aquaracer Professional 300
Historically, much of the TAG Heuer catalog has been focused on motorsport or aviation. OK, so watch-heads and beyond are more than familiar with the Aquaracer, but it’s certainly not the first TAG Heuer watch that springs to mind, at least not for me. And yet, the Aquaracer Professional 300 is one of the few dive watches made by a universally recognized brand in 36mm. In fact, TAG Heuer even makes an automatic-winding Aquaracer in 30mm, so they are far ahead of the mm diversity curve.
Heuer introduced its first series of dive watches in 1978. Building upon the appeal of the 1000 Series, Heuer created the 2000 Series in 1982, which lasted up until 1998. TAG Heuer relaunched the full 2000 Series model line as the ‘Aquaracer’ in 2005, and the 2000 Aquaracer became the Aquaracer 300m.
The 36mm TAG Heuer Aquaracer Professional 300 is powered by the automatic Caliber 5 movement and comes in a bunch of colors with a distinctively wavy bezel. It is priced at $3,800.
Oris Divers Sixty-Five 36mm Blue Metal
First appearing in 2015, the Oris Divers Sixty-Five stands out as a great value mid century-inspired modern dive watch. In the spirit of full transparency, I have absolutely no tie whatsoever to the Divers Sixty-Five line from Oris. And until writing this article, I really knew nothing about them other than the fact they have extremely tapered bracelets. But I did my due diligence and carried out some market research which led me to understand that this watch was a solid contender against the BB54 in terms of actual specs and price point. Oris is definitely a deeper-cut heritage brand than Tudor, but the obvious parallel to point out here is that both brands rode on a strong comeback via a vintage-inspired line.
The brand no longer carries this 36mm Sixty-Five in its collection, so you’ll have to go pre-owned. In fact, the smallest size diver currently available for purchase on the website is 38mm. It falls under the Divers Sixty-Five ‘Cotton Candy’ umbrella, which is clearly a nod to the colored OP dial craze. And while there’s nothing strictly wrong with these, I find the stainless steel with blue dial and black bezel in 36mm far more alluring.
Omega Seamaster 300M
How did the Seamaster, which started out as a water-resistant dress watch, become the Omega Seamaster 300m Professional Pierce Brosnan wore in Goldeneye? I don’t think I really know the answer to that question, but for Bond watch obsessives, this watch marks the beginning of Omega in place of Rolex, which I guess is a big deal?
In 1957 Omega unveiled a commercial diver branded as a Seamaster 300. This watch looked like your average small-ish (39mm) mid-century diver. Pretty classic, nothing crazy. But Pierce Brosnan’s ’90s Bond Seamaster, technically the spiritual successor to the 1957 Seamaster 300, looked completely different. It was wavy and bold and undeniably ’90s looking. I actually think of the Seamaster as Prince William’s watch, but each to their own for cultural references.
Anyway, the point of this comparison is to talk about small (ish) dive watches. If you want the 1990s 36mm version, I’m afraid you’ll have to go quartz. Or you could buy a modern 36.25mm version which, again, like the Oris, you’d have to buy pre-owned (anybody sensing a theme here?); it comes equipped with the Caliber Omega 2500 and will set you back around $4,000.
Concluding Thoughts
I want to be extremely clear in saying size should not be prescriptive. Wear what you are comfortable wearing. I adore big watches on women, but I am not spiritually or emotionally there yet. For now, I’ll take my watches under 39mm. Perhaps one day I will wear a vintage gold Submariner loosely on my wrist with confidence and laugh at my previous hesitation towards 40mm. For now, I am happy to sit comfortably with 36-37mm.
When it comes to modern watch design, I oscillate between wanting watches that are intentionally designed for women and watches that are equal-opportunity for all, like the BB54, 37mm Royal Oaks, and 36mm OPs. So what if I want it all. Because maybe it’s about catering to everybody’s needs and understanding that people’s needs aren’t always so black and white. Hello, life is grey! Some women relate to products made intentionally with them in mind, designs that are more jewelry-like and less watchy. Some gravitate towards a more neutral approach. And some prefer a more robust and “masculine” look. How about we stop the who-is-allowed-to-wear-what conversation and just wear whatever, whenever we feel like it.
So the BB54 is my little modern miracle. A symbol for a more thoughtful compact design. Sure, the BB54 isn’t strictly “modern”, it’s basically a recreation of, or as Cole Pennington so astutely pointed out to me, “a spiritual successor” to the 7922. What does a cool and robust modern tool watch look like in the 37mm size range? Watch brands – the floor is open!
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For more information visit Tudor. The HODINKEE shop carries a variety of pre-owned Tudor watches.
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