Georges Kern, how are you, sir?
I'm very well. Thank you very much. Thank you.
I know that you are overseeing a multitude of brands at this point, but let's talk about your first love if I can say, and that's Breitling. But let me first say you picked the perfect ambassador. Austin Butler is like he reminds me, and it's been so long since we had a guy that reminds us of like Paul Newman, of Steve McQueen, one of those actors who has this natural just sort of charisma and has got this coolness. So talk to me about how he got onboarded to this adventure.
We looked into many possible ambassadors and as usual I've met him first. Always over the last 30 years I've always tried to meet the people. So number one, he's not knowledgeable in watches but he admits it, which is a very good point. So he's learning and he's very humble, but he loves watches, especially because he was raised with these movies with all the watches in these movies. So he always refers to this retro type of movies. And you know that I've been dealing with many Hollywood stars over the last 25 years and he's probably one of the nicest I've ever met. Super professional, super nice, super sweet, super engaged. The shootings and everything we do with him, it's triple A, I must say. And he's just a lovely person. The only problem I told him that he has now the age of my son, which makes me very old, but he's so nice.
Okay, so let's move from there to the watch that he's wearing in the new campaign, which is the Top Time Chronometer 38 mm. I love the size and it's so cool because the majority of big brands always are like, 'No, I don't want to listen to the customer.' But you actually did.
It was a battle, I must say. And my designers came and said, 'Georges, let's try the 38.' So we did 3D printing 38, 39, 40, 41. And it was a battle. I must say I'm wearing it myself now since two or three weeks and I just love it. And my whole life I was wearing bigger watches, you know, 46 mm stuff.
Yes. Well, you started that trend as I recall, the other trend 20 years ago.
And I must say that size is absolutely incredible and we need to, you know, we have these classic watches, the classic AV, we have the Premier, we have the Top Time, and all these watches should have a classic size, I would say. So that's the idea. So these will be our classic lines and we want to keep that slight retro touch but also the size. And here what is exceptional is obviously our new B31 automatic movement which is also fantastic. And the whole thing, I would say, with that quality, with that movement at that price point, I think we're quite unique. It's roughly $5,900. So I think it's unbeatable in the market.
Yeah. I love the fact that you didn't just launch a new model, but you actually made a bespoke movement, the B31, for this case size. And it's great to behold. There's so much integrity in that watch as well.
Yeah, no, and the movement is beautiful. It's rock solid. When we started to develop it, I said, I want a rock solid movement because we're going to build complications on that. Cool. In the future. So we need something with lots of power, with lots of security in not failing. So we've tested it. It's five years guarantee. It's 28 by 4 mm. So it's a little wider than what you would find in the industry today. But no, we've tested it, it's doing very well.
I got to say I love this colorway also and it reminds me of a Top Time chronograph made for Deus many years ago, which is really cool.
We wanted to make it a little younger, as you know. From a historical point of view, Breitling, when he launched the Top Time, by the way, he called it 'Time Top' and then his wife told him, 'No, call it Top Time.' So that's a story. He wanted to give it a little younger touch than the Premier. So this is why this product is a bit more colorful. But still very classic. It's a very straightforward type of design. And I thought we would be in a niche, but actually we've obviously sold it to the retailers. They all love it.
Yeah. Well, it's the perfect watch for this generation as well, but even for guys like us who like yourself, I grew up with large watches, but now when I wear a watch that's way over 44 mm, it feels a little bit awkward. And I love to have timepieces like this. It's cool also that you're always trying to integrate value proposition into your watches. This is 5,300, but then with the bracelets just 300 more.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Great timepiece.
So, we've got the Top Time Chronograph, we've got the Top Time Chronometer, but we've also got a racing watch as well with this really cool cushion case. Talk to me a little bit about this.
I'm going to pick up the Martini race. I'm wearing it, by the way.
Okay, I'm wearing it. The Top Time as I said was in a way conceived at that time as the younger version of the Premier. And when we went through all the designs, we saw also the cushion and we just loved it. So we decided why not have a capsule collection, 750 pieces each, with this dashboard type of design. But it's also very small. It's 38 mm, but on your wrist, on my wrist, it doesn't look small at all. And it's recognizable, immediately recognizable. This is clearly a little bit of retro, but we have many other designs in the pipe for that case to do other executions.
Yeah, it's great because it's got such a balanced size and then you've made an effort to make the dial as broad as possible, keep the bezel really thin. I like the cushion case integration with the round bezel as well because you've got these kind of sunray marks on it that bring a kind of visual richness to it and the case.
Exactly. Really cool. No, we're very happy about that product and there are more surprises also with the chronograph which we're going to present in a couple of days. So yeah, it's a great line and it works very well.
Okay. So, last year you launched a really cool watch with a perpetual calendar, right? Navitimer Chronograph Perpetual Calendar and it was all in precious metal. And now this year you've come with a steel version with a platinum bezel but in this really cool ice blue dial which is kind of one of the visual signatures for Breitling for me. Talk to me about that watch and what it represents.
Yeah. So with the ice blue dials we always try to enrich also the case. So as you know on the Chronomat we have the platinum bezel and we decided to do the same obviously for the Navitimer. So it elevates just the case, but because many people don't like to wear gold watches or rose gold watches, but we wanted to elevate because we're using a very expensive movement here. So we wanted to elevate the watch without going into crazy prices and this is the way we do with a bezel. And it's a movement you're going to see more often in our collection because as for the B01, we have now many more complications coming. So that was always a strategy, B01 or B31, and now you will see on our base movements more complications coming. Fantastic. So that in two or three years we will be more or less 100% manufacturer movement.
