Founded in 1946 by "von Büren S.A / Montres" (Neuchâtel / Swiss) the Squale brand is pioneer in the creation, evolution and development of dive-watches. Swiss Made professional diving watches with their own unique design language.

Back in 1946 "von Büren S.A / Montres" started to produce watches and watch cases as they saw the need for reliable, safe and elegant dive watches. Founder Charles von Büren was a passionate diver and tried and tested his watches by himself, with his findings in real life situations he redesigned and developed them to perfection. Various large and smaller watch brands started to use Squale as a specialist supplier when diving became a popular sport in the 1960 and they needed dive watches in their assortment fast. The famous and unique "von Büren" cases quickly became the blueprint for the perfect diving watch. Form follows function, minimalistic design, high quality, elegant and reliable. The basics of every Squale watch.

In 1950 "von Büren S.A / Montres" started to produce their own range of professional dive watches under the Squale brand name marking the beginning of the brands institutional history. Squale became the dive watch of choice for world champions free diving and spearfishing like Jaques Mayol, Maria Treleani, Jean Tapu, Tony Salvatori, and the Cuban national team of 1967. Diving was considered an extreme sport back then and the dive watch was a necessary part of the safety equipment.

A helium release valve is a potential risk factor and a part that can easily fail. Squale - as a specialist dive watch manufacturer, saw this safety problem and invented a way to overcome this and therefore increase safety and reliability. End of 1960's Squale introduced the first Squale 1000 meter dive watch with the unique glass on flexible double mountings that didn’t use or needed a Helium release valve anymore, which was a unique safety feature and a novelty of great importance. A dive watch should be safe and reliable in any condition. Even today this is the brand philosophy of Squale watches.

Squale supplied the elite corps of a large number of armed forces, amongst these were the "Folgore Brigade" part of the Italian Airforces, the Italian Navy’s Diving Corps and the French Special naval commandos better know as "bérets verts". All this has made Squale synonymous as a specialist and the benchmark brand for professional dive watches internationally, a status it still enjoys after decades.

The name Squale is a translation of the word “shark” from the French dialect spoken in the Neuchâtel region where von Büren S.A. Montres originates. The Squale brand logo consists of a Shark and the family weapon of the von Büren family.

Squale is now family owned in the third generation by the Italian Maggi Family who where the former distributors of von Büren / Squale watches in Italy and are still close family friends of the von Büren family . After the retirement of founder Charles von Büren, the Maggi family acquired the Squale brand and continued to produce Squale watches in the spirit and vision of the founder Charles von Büren up to this day. The firm is currently lead by Andrea Maggi.

Squale watches nowadays has their head office in the centre of the beautiful city of Milan and a production facility in the Jura region in Switzerland. Squale watches are Swiss made and assembled by master watchmakers in Switzerland and that take great pride in producing and protecting the Squale legacy of providing reliable, superbly designed and elegant professional dive watches.