28/09/2026
ORANGE, WITH A REASON.
In the 1960s and 1970s, offshore exploration was moving into deeper waters. Divers working on oil and gas installations had to operate for long periods at depths where conventional diving techniques reached their limits.
This created a new challenge: how could humans live and work safely under extreme pressure — and return safely to the surface?
Professor Albert A. Bühlmann’s research in Zurich was at the heart of answering that question. His work on breathing gases, saturation diving and decompression helped establish the scientific foundations needed for increasingly deep and prolonged underwater operations.
The Capshell experiments were part of this pioneering era of hyperbaric research. Divers lived and worked under simulated pressure, allowing Bühlmann and his team to study how the human body absorbed and released inert gases and to develop safer decompression procedures.
The Capshell chamber used for these experiments was painted a distinctive orange.
More than half a century later, that colour became the inspiration for the dial of the Bühlmann Decompression 02 First Edition Orange.
Not a colour chosen from a palette.
A colour taken from our history.
From the pressure chamber to the wrist.
