I’ve owned many diver-style watches in the past, and several claiming to be re-issues, but not many pull off the 1960’s-1970’s ‘Skindiver’ vibe quite as well as the Oris Divers Sixty-Five series. Although some of the 65 designs are made with more modern watch fashion influences, like their bronze editions.

I have a deep love for this watch. I’ve owned three different styles, the 40mm with the large vintage style 12,3,6 and 9 dial. Which sadly had a flimsy crown and had to get fixed. But looked smashing! I then bought a 42mm Green dial version when Celtic won the Treble Treble, on a marvelous green and black NATO strap, made by Oris with a snazzy deployant buckle. Absolutely stunning, sold it…was sick as a parrot, so I found a blue dial version and I was super happy with it.

Until. My grail changed. So it had to go. It had the same NATO strap only in a deep black…almost as black as Father O’Hallorans socks…and that’s bloody black!

The bad:
Some things I found on the Oris Divers Sixty-Five that were annoying, one was the crown on the 40mm looking like a limp dick, but that can happen to a lot of dive watches, without crown guards right? They scratch up like all highly polished watches and the bezel feels like it’s made from Bakelite, which is true to form, and exactly how the old ones from the 60’s were, and hence scratch and chip easily.

The good:
It’s a very slim watch and houses a Sellita SW-200 type automatic movement, meaning that it can be worn on any occasion. It works well under a suit jacket or with just about any attire, but looks best with casual clothes in my opinion. The other good thing, is the vast array of variants of this watch, with 36mm-42mm versions to a chronograph and special editions! I usually slag watches off more than this, but I can’t say anything worse. Because it’s a lovely watch…got another one in the mail already and have totally contradicted myself over the ‘Selling it to fund my grail’ comment. Oh well, it’s something to do during lockdown!