This Affordable Dive Watch Boasts a Rare High-End Feature

Yema strikes again with a value-packed vintage-inspired diver.

Published June 19, 2024

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Two things that make a watch extra appealing to me are value for money and the inclusion of an unexpected feature. The latest dive watch from Yema ticks both boxes.

Over the past few years, the resurgent French brand has continuously built out its catalog of affordable watches with more and more of its new manufacture movements.

The latest to get the in-house treatment is a new version of the brand’s mid-century-inspired Skin Diver. This iteration of the style mixes classic vintage styling with a modern Yema-made movement boasting a rarely seen high-end feature.

Here’s everything you need to know about the Yema Skin Diver Slim CMM.20.

Yema Skin Diver Slim CMM.20 Limited Edition

$2,249 at yema

1960s Styling, 21st Century Movement

The new watch is based on Yema’s skin divers from the 1960s, and the design is spot-on for the era. The indices are a retro mix of shark teeth and lume-surrounded Arabic numerals in a tiki-like font. The handset uses a prominent arrow for the minutes and a lollipop seconds hand to add some retro flair alongside the more standard pencil hour hand.

The brushed 39mm stainless steel case is slim (more on that later) with long sharp lugs and a polished chamfer running along the edge, while the oversized screw-down crown is unprotected.

The crystal is a 2mm-high sapphire dome meant to evoke the look of a bulbous mid-century acrylic crystal, and the sapphire bezel insert is an intentionally faded gray to mimic the naturally faded “ghost” bezels seen on some vintage divers.

yema dive watch closeup — Vintage details aplenty can be found on the Skin Diver Slim.

Finally, there’s the old-school serpentine “Scales” bracelet that’s highly unusual for a modern diver yet fits the aesthetic of the watch perfectly.

The watch looks spectacular, but it’s what’s inside that’s most impressive.

The Skin Diver Slim is powered by Yema’s CMM.20 manufacture calibre, which is an automatic movement with Yema-manufactured bridges and plates, 70 hours of power reserve, and near-COSC-level precision of -3/+7 seconds per day.

But what’s most impressive about the movement is that it’s powered by a micro-rotor. The smaller tungsten oscillating mass fits inside the movement rather than on top of it, which allows the movement — and, therefore, the watch — to be considerably thinner.

yema automatic micro rotor movement closeup — The micro-rotor inside the CMM.20 movement allows it to be thinner than a typical automatic movement.

The CMM.20 calibre measures just 3.7mm thick, and the Skin Diver Slim lives up to its name with a total thickness of just 10mm (that’s without the massive domed crystal).

The movement is visible through a sapphire caseback and is decorated with a black atomic layer deposition treatment, resulting in a hyper-contemporary look that contrasts interestingly with the rest of the watch.

Pricing and Availability

Earlier this year, Yema released a version of its Superman Diver powered by the same micro-rotor movement. At the time, I remarked how rare it was to see such a feature normally associated with high-end watches in a dive watch that costs just $2,490.

Well, the Skin Diver Slim is even more affordable at just $2,249, roughly 10 percent less than the Superman. That’s an incredible bargain for any diver with the specs and build quality of this Yema, but adding in the manufacture micro-rotor movement makes it an even more insane value.

Of course, there has to be a catch, and it’s this: The Yema Skin Diver Slim is limited to just 500 examples. So if you want to get your hands on one, I’d suggest ordering one from Yema now before they sell out.