Jacques Bianchi and Deepsea.EDC Come Together For A Forged Carbon Combat Diver

Jacques Bianchi Marseille is a revival of a French brand that made dive watches for the military in the 1980s. Deepsea.EDC is the Instagram alias of Brock Stevens, a photographer and gear tester who spent more than seven years as a US Navy diver and now works with brands like Watches of Espionage and Tornek-Rayville. Their first collaboration, the titanium JB300 Profonde, was one of the best titanium divers I've seen in ages. And it so well, the two are coming back together again. For the JB300 Professional, Stevens asked combat divers in the SEALs, MARSOC and Army Special Forces what they need on long rebreather missions, and designed the watch around their answer: a lighter case.

The case is made out of forged carbon over a Grade 5 titanium core, 41.5mm wide and 13mm thick, with a 20mm lug width. The lugs are fixed bars in reinforced forged carbon, so there is no spring bar to fail underwater. The bezel is black DLC-coated Grade 5 titanium. The crown stays on the left side, as on the first JB300. On top is a sapphire crystal, and you get 300 meters of water resistance.

The bezel is very cool. Lume runs around the entire scale, but the pip and the opening 15 minutes glow green while the remaining 45 minutes glow blue. Stevens says the split helps divers time short navigation legs in low light. The dial is matte black with oversized maxi indices and no date. Each hand has its own shape, so you won’t confuse hours, minutes and seconds. It’s a plain, highly legible dial, which is what this watch should have.

Inside is the Soprod P024, a Swiss automatic running at 4Hz, with a 38-hour power reserve. This version is COSC-certified, rated to -4/+6 seconds a day. The fixed bars limit you to pass-through straps. The first 200 examples ship with a black and red Watches of Espionage × Zulu Alpha Commando strap.

The Jacques Bianchi Marseille x Deepsea.EDC JB300 Professional is limited to 500 pieces. However, only 300 are available to the public directly from Jacques Bianchi; the other 200 are reserved for military and police units. Price is set at €1,995. See more on the Jacques Bianchi Marseille website.