jkingston
356
RIP Bob
Apr 25, 2015,09:45 AM
Nico:
I was there that evening on Place Vendome and was fortunate to spend several hours with Bob Maloubier hearing his stories of the quest to find a diving watch for the French Combat divers. And I was equally fortunate to spend many hours with Jean-Jacques Fiechter, Blancpain's CEO from 1950-1980, who, himself a passionate diver, saw the need for a diving timepieces, formed his own ideas about what was needed, and built the Fifty Fathoms and evolved it over the next three decades.
Maloubier and Fiechter were truly visionaries. Their common ideas of what a diving watch should be became the blueprint for the entire industry and one that is as true and good today as it was in 1953.
Jeff