Breitling’s rapid growth – its revenues are said to have doubled in the last five years – may be attributed to two things. Its repositioning as a lifestyle brand to target younger buyers, a so-called “new approach to luxury”. And its steady release of revamped models from its near 140-year archive, to keep the watch community salivating.
Watches it has dusted off and rebooted include its James Bond-related Top Time, its space-race era Navitimer Cosmonaute and a series of watches commemorating vintage Americana, its Classic Cars Capsule Collection. All have managed to hit the brand new/retro sweet spot, proving hits with critics and consumers alike.
An outlier was arguably the 2020 relaunch of a model called the Chronomat. That watch has its origins in the 1980s, when slim digital watches from Japan had taken over, and just about the last person who wanted to be seen wearing a showy great chronometer was a pilot. An early version was commissioned by Italy’s national aerobatics team – it’s perhaps difficult to think of anything more showy than an Italian national aerobatics team in the 1980s – and the watch was released to the public soon after, as the Chronomat.
According to Breitling lore, the Chronomat played a central part in turning people back on to “proper” watches again and, by extension, led us to the 21stCentury boom in Swiss watches we’re living through today. That may be a stretch, but you can understand the company’s keenness to reissue it.
With its steel “rouleaux” bracelet, domed onion crown and jutting rider tabs, visual markers at 3, 6 and 9 o’clock, the reissued Chronomat still felt very 1980s – a serious tool watch, and a throwback at odds with the brand’s groovy new lifestyle direction. (An even more beast-y 44mm Super Chronomatversion followed the year after).
Now it has addressed those points, with new Chronomats in a smaller size that add a GMT complication and dispense with the chronograph function completely. They’re also slimmer – 11.77mm versus 15.10mm for the Chronomat 42.
The new Chronomat Automatic GMT 40 comes in five colours: black, blue, green, white and anthracite. Each of the dials features a tone-on-tone 24-hour scale, designed to make the red GMT hand pop.
The GMT function requires a new movement, the Calibre 32 that powers the hours, minutes, seconds and date function on the watch, with a power reserve of about 42 hours.
It's more versatile and wearable watch all-round.
“A watch for every pursuit,” as Breitling’s marketing says. “Sturdy enough for the gym yet smart enough for black tie: if there’s one watch to travel with, this is it.”
To underline the point Breitling has accounted a new “squad” of ambassadors. The sporty “All-Star Squad” is comprised of the Manchester City’s Erling Haaland, the NBA’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim and the American footballer Trevor Lawrence.
This time around, showy Italian aerobatics pilots are conspicuous by their absence.
Johnny Davis is the Style Director of Esquire. He was previously editor of the influential British magazine The Face.