In the late 1960s, Jacques Cousteau, the father of SCUBA diving, collaborated with DOXA to design a watch that is inexorably associated with him.

When the Sub 300T was released, most dive watches were cast in the mold set by the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms in the early 1950s. At its simplest principle, a dive purpose-driven dive watch needs to do one thing: calculate a dive time. It had to be rugged, its case watertight, and thick enough to withstand the enormous pressure at depth. 

Most dive watches had dials that were black, their hour markers and hands adorned with luminescent material to ensure maximum visibility no matter how far down you went.  

But in designing the Sub 300T, DOXA departed from the mold in a way that was completely unprecedented. 

The rounded cushion case of the Sub 300T would become one of the most recognizable silhouettes of the era. And the bezel incorporated an innovative feature never before seen on a dive watch: the U.S. Navy No -Decompression chart. DOXA used bright colors for the chart: the outer depth scale in orange, and the minute scale in black, allowing divers to calculate at a glance how long they've been underwater.

For the dial, DOXA experimented with many different colors—bright orange, silver, black. But when you go deep enough, every color looks grey. Nevertheless, bright dial colors became the Sub 300T’s calling card, standing out on shelves amid a sea of black-dialed dive watches.

Though the orange-dialed variant is perhaps the most iconic Sub 300T, DOXA released a version of the Sub 300T with a bright yellow dial. The Divingstar, with its slightly thicker case, is like the Giant Squid: rare and elusive. Exact quantities of these watches are unknown, but when one surfaces on the vintage market, people take note. 

This particular Divingstar is a later version, released after DOXA was absorbed into the Synchron group, evident on the case back. The bezel and dial retain their vibrant colors, and the lume on the dial has taken on a fine patina. On a Synchron-signed beads of rice bracelet, it has a look that's distinctive and hard to forget. Clean examples of Divingstars such as this one don't surface often - don't miss it!