"When Tudor was founded in 1926 as a modestly more affordable alternative to Rolexthey remain sibling brands to this daythe relationship offered hugely helpful synergies in research and development. But it also left the fledgling watchmaker with an ambiguous identity. During its first quarter century, it produced only a trickle of watches, mostly simple yet functional dress models. Tudor had yet to discover its own raison d'etre. It was waiting to be discovered beneath the waves."
"The sea change came in 1954, when Tudor created its first dedicated dive watch, the Oyster Prince Submariner, a ruggedly engineered piece with an impressive (at the time) depth rating of 100 meters. The launch was particularly (ahem) timely. After World War IIthanks in no small part to the underwater experience gained in active servicescuba diving was entering its heyday as an amateur pursuit. The boom offered a whole new market of dive-watch customers for Tudor."
"But it wasn't only the weekend warriors who gave Tudor its cachet in the ocean. Just two years after the Oyster Prince, Tudor began a long relationship with the frogmen (yes, they're actually called les hommes grenouilles in French) of France's navy, the Marine Nationale. By the mid-1960s, standard production pieces were also issued to serving members of the U. S. Navy, including the SEALs. Many other elite forces followed suit, and professional service propelled Tudor into a 60-year pursuit of ever-better performance."
Tudor began in 1926 as a more affordable sibling to Rolex, gaining R&D synergies but lacking a distinct identity. Early production focused on simple, functional dress watches. A pivotal moment came in 1954 with the Oyster Prince Submariner, rated to 100 meters, which aligned with the postwar scuba boom and opened a new market. Military adoption followed, starting with France's Marine Nationale and later U.S. Navy units including the SEALs, driving continuous performance improvements. That evolution culminates in the Pelagos Ultra, a titanium 43mm dive watch rated to 1,000 meters with a METAS-tested calibre MT5612-U movement.
Read at www.esquire.com
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