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

The Tudor Black Bay 54 "Lagoon Blue" (not to be confused with the highly controversial 1980s film "The Blue Lagoon" starring Brooke Shields) builds on the 2023 original 37mm release with a dial that feels like a deliberate shift in tone: lighter, flashier, and more contemporary in appearance. The sand-textured, ice-blue metallic finish paired with a polished relief bezel and five-link bracelet gives the watch a dressier, stylized feel without compromising its tool-watch credentials. It still holds up as a true dive watch, with 200 meters of water resistance and the COSC-certified MT5400 movement. At $4,350, 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. It certainly comes as a stark contrast to this year's Watches and Wonders novelty: the 43mm Pelagos FXD Chrono.

Let me take you back to BB54 mania (well, it was mania in my world). I'll try not to let my enthusiasm get the better of me, but the BB54 felt like a course correction for every misstep made by commercially driven sport-watch brands. I wasn't exactly waiting for a 37mm Tudor dive watch to fall from the sky, but I was hoping for a modern tool watch that could meet what I consider to be fairly reasonable expectations: robust, sporty-looking, between 36 and 38mm in diameter, and most importantly, well-designed and cool enough for me to actually want to wear it outside the office or anywhere that isn't a watch event.

Until the 54, I never had any sort of emotional pull toward Tudor in its modern era. It has always felt very off-limits to me, all very man-who-likes-to-use-his-tool-watches-as-prescribed. But the BB54 felt like it was for me, and for all of the other women who are constantly searching for something smaller, without heinously ill-thought-out gender markers like pink dials and diamond bezels. A watch that was bound to get attention, given the success of the BB58 and the appetite for Tudor's ability to produce extremely well-executed, vintage-inspired dive watches. But also a watch that could potentially open up an entire conversation around smaller-sized tool watches. A watch that might help push forward the long-overdue agenda to create more.

While I do not believe the original BB54 was sized to intentionally bring women into the fold, the Lagoon Blue 54 is clearly a bolder foray into getting women on board. A 37mm diameter naturally opens up the playing field. But the metallic blue dial, high-shine polished bezel and bracelet, and the toning down of obvious dive-watch elements all point clearly toward a play for the female market.

The Black Bay 54 Lagoon Blue wears well on the wrist. It shares the exact specs as its 2023 predecessor, still a little chunky for a mid-size watch, but that's par for the course at Maison Tudor. And honestly, I like the heft. It speaks to my ongoing preference for a robust watch. The dial is mesmerizing. It shimmers like an eyeshadow palette left in the sun, iridescent, textured, and just shy of precious. And suppose I could fully set aside the baby-pink-and-baby-blue-is-for-girls narrative that lingers in the back of my mind, a sort of PTSD response to brands that have made far less effort than Tudor. In that case, I'd probably be deeply engaged in a rapture on the cultural importance of the color blue.

Now for the mirror polish on the bezel and center links. I'm undecided on the finish. I just can't bear to see my beloved 54 looking like it's no longer a tool watch. I understand the rationale. It's an effort to make the 54 feel dressier, more jewelry-adjacent, appealing to a consumer looking for shine without going full gold. Perhaps the reluctance is entirely a "me problem" and I just need to accept that the overall vibe of this watch is much different than that of its predecessor. 

The BB54 Lagoon Blue seems to be landing well on the internet, but beyond the musings of the commentariat, I see this as a culturally divisive release. And before you roll your eyes, let me explain why. In an athleisure-driven world where leggings and sport watches are often viewed as the enemy of innovation, a sport watch made for and marketed to women signals an attempt to say something new. Could downsizing a popular sport watch, without defaulting to a derivative reinterpretation of the core product, signal a rare attempt to genuinely understand what a woman might want to be offered? In a space where mass-market decisions are often purely commercial, this feels, on some level, like a mild metallic thrill.

And I'm not just talking about the "pink it and shrink it" formula. What we're seeing is a broader failure to grasp what modern consumers, especially women, are actually drawn to across other categories. My advice to most watch brands: spend a day in a major city. Go to a restaurant, a gallery, a Pilates class, or a café. The way people dress and accessorize now is nuanced and layered.

Hard glamour is impossible to achieve if you're not making a true jewelry watch, like those from the jewelry maisons. So instead of forcing sparkle, why not focus on what you're already good at? Make your sporty watches actually sporty. Refined. Wearable. Functional. Because that, too, can be its own kind of glamour when worn with nonchalance. I don't speak for all women, but in my opinion, watch design should be a nuanced practice. And right now, nuance is exactly what's missing. For the brands that spend 99 percent 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.

Was the original BB54 a smoke signal for a future where women's watches are taken as seriously as men's? So 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.

For the first novelty release of the Black Bay 54, the tone being set is a complete aesthetic departure from the brand's core catalog. We're looking at a highly polished, relief-style bezel paired with a five-link bracelet featuring polished center links, and an aquamarine, almost baby-blue, sand-textured metallic dial. To me, it reads plainly as: here is our midsize sport watch, dressed up for women.

Let's look at the Black Bay Fifty-Eight release cycle by contrast: the original black dial in 2018, the navy blue in summer 2020, then the 925 silver and 18k gold editions in 2021, followed by the 18k on a bracelet in 2024. Each of these stayed relatively true to the BB58 aesthetic. Even the gold version, while a bold material choice, was fully brushed with a graduated dive bezel and a matte finish that kept it looking "Tudor."

The Lagoon Blue 54 isn't just a simple dial color change or an aesthetic switch-up that aligns with what we'd traditionally expect from something sporty, vintage-inspired, and distinctly Tudor, which, by the way, I would have welcomed. Had this been a 925 treatment, like what we saw with the Black Bay Fifty-Eight back in 2021, I'd have been all for it. But pale blue isn't a totally new departure. It comes on the back of the success of the Flamingo Blue and the Inter Miami Pink Chrono, and perhaps even the Pelagos FXD Chrono Cycling Edition Pink. All models that were novel takes on very well-established watches. And while a metallic blue dial is fun in essence, and in keeping with the pink-and-blue summer motif for the brand, it's hard – as a BB54 lover – not to see this watch as a derivative of one of the few small mid-size sport watches on the modern reissue market that kept its original sporty look. To me, a frosted baby-blue dial with a high-shine finish on the metal is still spiritually pretty close to a pink-dial watch "for" women.

While the watch industry is far from an endless engine of creativity, I commend Tudor for taking an earnest stab at new provocation through color. In a moment of luxury anhedonia, a brand like Tudor offers a more modest, relatable slice of luxury, one that's aligned with the outdoors and the grounding simplicity of nature. The 54 may have been the start of a change in the collective imagination. Just look at last week's 38mm Fifty Fathoms release. Larger brands are reframing the argument for smaller sport watches. 

A giant leap for those of us seeking sporty satisfaction in smaller case sizes. To quote James Stacey, maybe this is just the beginning of "small dive-watch summer?"