DOXA

DOXA made watches for more than seventy years before it became associated with orange-faced divers. Georges Ducommun opened his business in Le Locle in 1889. Alongside pocket watches, the company developed clocks for vehicles: its eight-day movement, patented in 1907, could run for more than a week between windings.

Diving brought another setting, and another set of questions. In the 1960s, DOXA's Urs Eschle worked with diver Claude Wesly on a watch that could be read underwater. Divers needed to distinguish elapsed minutes at a glance, in conditions very different from those above water.

The orange SUB 300 appeared in 1967. Its broad minute hand and marked rotating bezel gave elapsed time prominence: knowing how long a dive had lasted was part of the watch's purpose. Color, hand shape and the ring around the face were developed as one instrument.

The SUB became the best-known part of a much older business.