Citizen’s 37mm Promaster Dive: Same Great Things, Smaller Package

Does the new 37mm Promaster Dive watch from Citizen have a unidirectional rotating bezel? Check! A super legible dial with lumed hour plots and sword hands? Naturally. What about water resistance to 200 meters? You know it. However, these are just the basic requirements of any dive watch; the 37mm Citizen Promaster Dive also features less obvious attractions.

For example, the screw-down crown at 4 o’clock protects the Eco-Drive movement from water and improves wearability and comfort. Moreover, because it has an Eco-Drive calibre, you will never need to change the 37mm Citizen Promaster Dive’s battery – a reassuring thought when measuring dive times at depth because overstaying immersion at sea due to your watch stopping to tick is incompatible with longevity. Plus, avoiding the purchase of batteries when possible is an environmentally conscious choice.

In short, with its familiar styling – like a polyurethane bracelet and stainless-steel case – the 37mm Promaster Dive released in June 2023 measures significantly smaller than its predecessor without watering down (pardon the pun) any of the technical chops.

So, what’s the issue? Why offer a model with a sub-40mm case size when Citizen’s Promaster Dive family was already by far the brand’s most popular line of watches, even though it includes no fewer than 40 models, only two of which have cases measuring under 44mm (and both are 41mm)?
 

The appealing mid-sized proportions of the 37mm Promaster Dive make it a tool watch that wears its utility a little more lightly (in the most literal sense), so women are the most obvious target demographic. However, the appeal of scaled-down watches – whether they have lots of bells and whistles or are time-only affairs – certainly isn’t a preference the female demographic monopolize.

The gender divide in watchmaking is (mercifully) easing toward obsolescence. For instance, legions of watch wearers prefer a not-so-huge watch irrespective of their gender identity, including influential stars like Bad Bunny and Harry Styles, who have both been spotted sporting petite vintage references or even jewelry watches historically created for women.
 

Meanwhile, the trend toward timepieces that hit the style mark rather than act as status symbols is only building momentum. After all, when it’s easy to see the whole world of watches from your phone, everyone wants to have their pick of options. That might explain why the 37mm Promaster Dive is available in three colorways – blue, pink, and black – to accommodate wildly different sartorial dispositions.
 

A dive watch offered in a spectrum of colors is destined to be available in some variation of blue to emphasize its seafaring bona fides. And the very particular oceanic blue of the polyurethane strap on 37mm Promaster Dive (Ref. EO2028-06L; $375) will be familiar to anyone who recalls a pivotal speech delivered imperiously by Meryl Streep as Anna Wintour’s avatar, Miranda Priestley, in the now-classic film The Devil Wears Prada:

“[It’s] not just blue; it’s not turquoise; it’s not lapis; it’s actually cerulean,” the onscreen fashion editor says as she describes the precise nature of the vivid hue to her underling.
 

The ability to drop that snippet of screenwriting gold when someone compliments the color is a feature in this colorway’s favor, but it provides much more than a pop culture mic drop. Paired with a bezel and dial in a deeper navy tone, the watch has an overtly sporty, gender-inclusive allure accessible to anyone who wants a useful accessory with an upbeat, hard-to-miss presence.
 

Black is one of the great equalizers when it comes to style. Favored by fashion’s trailblazers – think Coco Chanel and Yohji Yamamoto – it’s also a refuge whenever ruminating over choosing the just-right color. Unassailably chic, black never fails.
 

Powerful, stealthy, sexy, mysterious, and effortless all at once, the strap and dial of the 37mm Promaster Dive (Ref. EO2020-08E; $375) are awash in the color, while the stainless-steel case and bezel lend a touch of contrast. And for those of you who are as practical as you are adventurous, there’s one more reason to become besotted with this black colorway: It disguises nicks and grime better than any other color.
 

Actually, upon further reflection, given the accessible pricing of the three Citizen 37mm Promaster Dive models, perhaps the best solution to selecting a color might be not to choose but to collect them all!

For more information, please visit the Citizen website.

(Photography by Liam O'Donnell)