CX Swiss Military 20,000ft Dive Watch: What Were They Thinking?

Has the Big and Bigger Watch Fad Finally Gotten Well and Truly Out of Hand?

Montres Charmex CX "Swiss Military" 20,000 ft diver side profile. €2,998.- (US$4300) will buy a big hunk of stupid.

You know how when you see pictures of ’70s fashions with 12-inch bellbottoms, enormous hairdos, platform shoes, and polyester leisure suits and all you can think (even if you lived through it) is, “Holy S#@t!  What were they thinking!?  Look at those pants for crying out loud!”

Take a good look here, because I’m betting we’ve now hit that point in the Big Watch™ fad that has been developing these past few years, in which watches containing the movements of the same size as previous years have been packaged in increasingly larger cases, with no clear practical benefit.

Vintage Rolex "Deep Sea Special", one of only 6 believed made for a special depth experiment. Photo: R-L-X.de

The CX “Swiss Military” 20,000ft diver is rated to an astonishing and astonishingly unnecessary 6,000m of water resistance.  And much like the Rolex “Deep Sea Special” experimental design of the’50s- ’60s (namesake of the current Rolex Sea-Dweller Deep Sea), it’s about the size of a golf ball.  Rolex of course had the sense and restraint to limit the production to some half-dozen examples for the experiment only, and wasn’t so brash as to introduce it as an actual production model.

Montres Charmex CX Swiss Military 20,000ft diver.

Add to that cheerful irony of branding a watch as “Swiss Military” when Switzerland is both historically neutral with very modest military capabilities, and of course is completely landlocked with little to no opportunity for any would-be military divers to use such watches.

The CX 20000ft.com website even has a video showing he watch being subjected to shotgun blasts, which the watch indeed survives relatively intact.  The advantage of such is quite beyond me though, as in all occasions when I’ve been subjected to gunfire and other assorted nastiness the thought of whether my watch might survive was usually the absolute furthest thing from my mind.  Irrational and pointless excess capability.

So here you have it folks, the watch that’s probably going to become the  “What the hell were they thinking!?” high water mark of the early 21st Century: an unwearable watch with technical specifications no one could ever need.  What were they thinking?  Look at those pants!

Links:

• Hodinkee Unboxing Video of the CX Swiss Military
• aBlogtoRead reveiw of the CX Swiss Military 20,000ft and follow-up video review
• CX Swiss Military showcase website: 20000ft.com