Breitling has updated its classic Premier chronograph family with fresh dial colours, a slightly larger size than current manual wind B09s, and designs that nod to the brand’s heritage in developing premium wristwatches with stopwatches in the post-war era.
As optimism that the war would one day end in the mid-1940s, the mind of Willy Breitling, the company’s third generation owner, turned from a focus on aircraft instrumentation and tool watches back to wristwatches that combined functionality with a more elegant aesthetic.
Breitling had been an innovator in the field of chronographs as far back as the 1880s, when Leon Breitling created pocket-watch timekeepers.
His son Gaston introduced the first wristwatch chronographs, with the timer controlled by a single stop start pusher at 2 o’clock, and it was Willy who added the second pusher at 4 o’clock to return the chronograph hand to its starting position.
“We are committed to preserving Willy Breitling’s bold vision of combining the precision of a professional tool watch with the sophistication of a modern dress watch,” says Breitling CEO Georges Kern. “The Premier embodied the hopeful energy that emerged in the postwar era, and we are proud to continue that tradition with a modern-retro version for our times.”
That heritage is distilled into the 2023 Premier chronographs, which use Breitling’s COSC-certified automatic manufacture Caliber 01 with 70 hour power reserve in a wearable 42mm case; slightly larger than the 40mm of the B09 manual-wind models.
Details that nod to vintage designs include a smooth fixed bezel, twin-register dial, streamlined rectangular pushers and applied Arabic numerals.
There are five dial colours in the steel chronograph range: black, blue, salmon, green or cream, in addition to a rose gold piece with a cream dial.
Steel models cost £7,150 on leather straps or £7,400 on steel bracelets.
The rose gold piece is £16,600 on an alligator leather strap.
