Breitling has turned to yellow gold for two of its best-known watches. Both come in at a very wearable 36mm, presumably with an eye on appealing to men and women alike.
The new Navitimer Automatic 36 and Superocean Heritage Automatic 36 combine stainless steel with 18k yellow gold, a metal Breitling has used rather less enthusiastically than red gold in recent years. It’s all pleasingly old-school, at a time when yellow gold is firmly back in favour.
The Navitimer is the most obviously dressier of the pair, with its fully blinged-out 18k yellow-gold slide-rule bezel, mother-of-pearl dial and diamond hour markers. Inside is the automatic, COSC-certified Breitling Calibre 17, with some 38 hours of power reserve. It comes on either a seven-row steel-and-gold bracelet, or a brown alligator strap.
Things get a little sportier with the Superocean Heritage. Its steel case gets a solid yellow-gold bezel, white ceramic bezel insert and a very crisp white dial, with gold hands and indexes. It also earns its stripes as dive watch, with 200 metres of water resistance, and runs on the automatic Calibre 10 with approximately 42 hours in reserve.
Breitling is pitching both as Christmas watches. Someone’s clearly expecting a rather good Christmas. (You don’t ask, you don’t get – as my mum used to say.)