Hands-On The Tudor Black Bay 54 "Lagoon Blue"

Photos by Shota Akiyoshi and Jamie Weiss

Australia is the land of the dive watch. Maybe it’s because we’re such a coastal nation – almost 90% of Australia’s population lives within 50kms of the coast, and almost 50% within 7kms – but the allure of a watch that can stand up to the surf is obvious. Aussies (and Kiwis) tend to love a bigger, sportier watch, and look for something they can wear from the beach to the boardroom.

In that sense, it’s been surprising to see how warm the reception for the Tudor Black Bay 54 "Lagoon Blue" has been locally. Released last year in June, perfectly timed for summer in the Northern Hemisphere, which therefore means an Antipodean winter, it shouldn’t have worked: smaller, snazzier, launched at the wrong time of year… And yet Aussies bloody love it.

Let’s look at the specs for a second. First released in 2023, the Black Bay 54 is Tudor’s smallest and thinnest modern tool watch, measuring up at 37mm in diameter and 11.24mm thick. Despite this, it maintains a 200-metre water resistance rating, a COSC-certified manufacture movement with a 70-hour power reserve, and a unidirectional timing bezel with a very retro aluminium insert.

Indeed, retro is the point of the Black Bay 54, with the model intended to be a homage to the Tudor Oyster Prince Submariner ref. 7922, the brand’s first-ever dive watch from 1954, which also measured 37mm in diameter (as did the watch that the 7922 was based on, the 620X series of references of the inaugural Rolex Submariner). The Black Bay 54’s proportions might please vintage purists, but they also have the welcome side-effect of making it a Black Bay that’s more accessible to a wider range of wrists – especially women’s wrists.

Flash forward to 2025, and you get the “Lagoon Blue”, which turns up the glam with a mirror-polished bezel; a textured, azure dial, and mounted on a five-link Jubilee-style steel bracelet complete with Tudor’s exceptional T-fit micro-adjustment. The Black Bay had always been a watch that perfectly married form and function, but the Lagoon Blue puts its proverbial thumb on the scale towards form.

When my US-based colleague Malaika Crawford wrote about the Lagoon Blue in June last year, the jury was still out on whether the market would embrace the watch. As she posited, “It feels like Tudor is testing how far the BB54 can reach audiences who may have felt left out of the brand's more rugged offerings. Whether it succeeds may depend on how much shine the wider crowd are willing to embrace.”

I think we can now say that it’s been an unalloyed success. Like the other watches in Tudor’s exclusive “Daring Watches” collection, the Lagoon Blue has become something of a hype watch, attracting the sort of waitlists and enthusiast interest that one normally expects of Tudor’s big sibling, Rolex. People want shine… And not just women. Anecdotally, the gender split on the Lagoon Blue is close to 50/50, and might even be attracting more men than women.

That’s where I think the Lagoon Blue is kind of genius. Tudor, a brand best known for being good value for money and making sensible moves reflective of enthusiast sentiment, has gone out on a limb and made a fashionable it-watch.

The elephant in the room in any discussion of the BB54 Lagoon Blue is the “Tiffany blue” Rolex Oyster Perpetual – or turquoise dials more broadly. The baby blue of this Black Bay’s dial isn’t an exact match for the New York jeweller’s famous shade, but it’s the same sort of vibe. What it is, however, is undoubtedly the flashiest Tudor in the range, helped by that mirror bezel and bracelet’s light-play.

The turquoise OP, in any diameter, is definitively a hype watch: as of publishing, the 41mm model has been discontinued, with only 31 and 36 models available with the dial, although both sizes are waitlisted. All sizes are trading over retail on the secondary market, with the 41 commanding asking prices of more than double or triple retail. Phew!

Enter the Lagoon Blue. Not only is it significantly cheaper at retail than the OP 36, but it’s a superior watch in many ways: it’s slimmer, it’s more water-resistant, it’s got a diving bezel, and T-fit plus Jubilee beats Oyster plus Oysterclasp, in my book at least. All at once, it’s both just as (if not more) chic than the OP, while also being a better daily wearer – even for someone with 19cm-sized wrists like myself.

I don’t want to diminish the importance of the Lagoon Blue as a watch targeted towards women. Tudor has always felt like a particularly masculine brand, certainly more masculine in its appeal than Rolex, so to see The Shield do something a bit different is more than a little cool.

Malaika put it best: “For the brands that spend 99% of their time making bold, oversized sport watches for men, we're just asking for versions that actually fit us, without compromising what made the original great… Often, when a brand takes a hero product and adapts it for women, the result feels like an afterthought, less considered, less exciting. But what Tudor has demonstrated here, even if the execution isn't perfect, is a willingness to put real energy behind a model that will be primarily marketed to women. Yes, it works for men too. But for a Swiss brand known for making tool watches, that's a notable shift.”

That cannot be understated. But I think that the nuance that’s emerged, now that the watch has been on the market for closer to a year, is that the Lagoon Blue is indeed, despite the fact that it’s been wholly marketed to women, working for men.

To that end, I also think it makes an ideal couple’s watch. If you have similar-sized wrists, T-fit makes it a breeze to adjust for different wearers (although admittedly, you’d probably have more success swapping on something with a pin buckle).

On its seasonality: it might have been positioned as a summer watch, and undoubtedly it’s perhaps best at home in a resort pool, but I think there’s something perennial about a fun pop of colour. Hell, here in Sydney, it never really gets that cold anyway, and people are in the ocean 12 months of the year. Forget being six months out from Europe and North America’s seasons – the Australian context is just different.

My one, very Aussie gripe with the Lagoon Blue? That mirror-polished bezel attracts smudges like nobody’s business, and with our high UV indexes meaning that dousing yourself in sunscreen is a nearly year-round ritual, I can just imagine the greasy fingerprints building up on that thing… A small price to pay for a bit of summer fun, all year round.