The Return of TROPIC: Your Favorite ’60s Rubber Straps Are Back!

Anyone who collects or loves vintage dive watches knows about the now legendary TROPIC rubber straps. They were made in the ‘60s and ’70s, and were often OEM standard issue and commonly found paired with different brands of divers, including Rolex, Enicar, and Jenny Caribbean, among others. Their design, durability, and comfort made them a staple of both leisure and professional divers, and if you were to look at just about any photo of a diver with his/her watch in the ‘60s, you would almost invariably find it paired with a TROPIC strap.

With the immense popularity of vintage dive watches, collectors have long sought out original TROPIC straps to complete their watches. However, because of that popularity, vintage TROPICs can command very high prices, and while there are many original examples out there, time as well as good ol’ wear-and-tear have made them harder to find in wearable condition. As a result, a number of companies today have produced their own interpretations of the TROPIC strap with varying degrees of success. Some are pretty good, and some are, well, let’s just say not so good.

But now the original is back, and as someone who’s sampled his fair share of the imitators I can say that I’m excited to see TROPIC’s return!

Vintage TROPICs came in a variety of lug widths ranging from 16mm to 22mm, in several colors, and even a few different styles. The most iconic and classic style had a distinct cross-hatch pattern on top and a deep diamond-shaped underside with lots of channels for water and sweat. The Sport variant, with its pebbled texture and large rally holes, was one of the most common variants after the original.

The tang buckle is nice, but it is decidedly more modern in design than the original was. Based on some of  the reactions I’ve seen on Instagram, I think a more vintage-style steel buckle would be preferred, and I generally agree with that sentiment. That said, the current buckle is well made, signed with the TROPIC logo, and at 16mm it’s a good size that works with the overall vintage vibe. By the way, one of the nice things about a 16mm buckle is that many vintage buckles from the ’60s were that size, so one could easily install a branded vintage buckle on one of these straps should they desire. The new TROPIC strap is made by the Synchron Group, the same company that makes Isofrane straps and Aquadive watches. Since Isofrane straps have a couple of buckle choices, I’m hoping TROPIC will follow suit and offer a vintage style buckle in the future.

The current lineup is available in a pretty inclusive range of colors, which includes black, brown, blue, green, orange, and yellow. I would love to see a gray/silver option in the future, as the vintage ones I’ve handled in that color look great on so many vintage dive watches. I’ve personally been wearing the 20mm black TROPIC on my vintage Tudor blue Snowflake, and it is so comfortable and easy wearing that it’s hard to take off. And, of course, it just straight-up looks killer paired with a vintage Sub.

These new TROPIC straps are available through the brand’s website for the very fair price of $79 a pop. Like I wrote above, there are many similarly-styled straps available on the market, but there is only one TROPIC brand, and now it’s back in proper fashion. With the cachet of the original brand, coupled with the excellent modern quality and retro look and feel of these new straps, TROPIC is likely going to be a big hit, especially at this price point. And if they address some of the issues I raised above,  add some more widths, lengths, and a vintage-style buckle, then they may not be able to keep them in stock. TROPIC