Standard diving dress, also known as hard-hat or copper hat equipment, deep sea diving suit or heavy gear, is a type of diving suit that was formerly used for all relatively deep underwater work that required more than breath-hold duration, which included marine salvage, civil engineering, pearl shell diving and other commercial diving work, and similar naval diving applications. Standard diving dress has largely been superseded by lighter and more comfortable equipment.
Diver in standard diving dress, Ožbalt, Slovenia (1958)
1842 sketch of the Deane brothers' diving helmet, the first practical surface-supplied diving equipment.
Air supplied from the boat by manually operated pump
Cave diving equipment from 1935 in the museum at Wookey Hole Caves
A diving suit is a garment or device designed to protect a diver from the underwater environment. A diving suit may also incorporate a breathing gas supply, but in most cases the term applies only to the environmental protective covering worn by the diver. The breathing gas supply is usually referred to separately. There is no generic term for the combination of suit and breathing apparatus alone. It is generally referred to as diving equipment or dive gear along with any other equipment necessary for the dive.
Two divers, one wearing a 1 atmosphere diving suit and the other standard diving dress, preparing to explore the wreck of the RMS Lusitania, 1935
John Lethbridge's diving dress, the first enclosed diving suit, built in the 1710s.
Early diving suit on display at the Naval History Museum in Mexico City.
Diver of the Estonian Home Guard, 1941