Breitling Chronomat GMT May Be The Sleeper Hit Of The Year

What We Know fake rolex watch

Breitling’s Chronomat was relaunched in 2020 and quickly became one of the most integral parts of the Breitling brand. From the brand’s large 44mm chronograph offerings down to the small 32mm ladies’ models,

Breitling has built up a solid lineup of Chronomats to choose from. But the collection has always jumped from 42mm to 36mm with nothing in between. That is, until today.

The new 40mm Chronomat Automatic GMT fills a gap in the collection in more ways than one. First, it brings a more reasonable size with a new 40mm diameter, 11.77mm thick, 47.4mm lug-to-lug stainless steel watch. You get all the standard Chronomat styling, including the classic “onion” crown and rouleaux bracelet,

along with 200m water resistance worthy of a sports watch you can take from the air to the sea with ease.

The second new addition is the inclusion of Breitling’s Caliber 32 GMT movement, a “caller” with an independently set GMT hand that was previously built off the workhorse ETA 2893-2 movement,

plus added refinements and finishing. Previously, the Chronomat lineup featured only three-hand watches and giant chronographs, but no longer. The Caliber 32 movement provides approximately 42 hours of power reserve to fuel the GMT, hours, minutes, seconds, and date functions on the watch.

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Breitling’s Chronomat Automatic GMT 40 comes in five color options: black, blue, green, white, and anthracite. Each of these dials features a “tone-on-tone” 24-hour scale,

matching the dial to the rehaut instead of going for a multi-color bezel. Breitling believes this increases legibility, letting the red GMT stand out.

At the end of the day, you get all this for $5,600.

What We Think

ve had mixed feelings in the past about Breitling’s Chronomats. While apparently sales hits for the brand, the chronographs always wore too large to me. The vintage Chronomats, a kind of cult classic, often feel a bit “janky” for lack of a better term, from the bracelet to the bezels. All that made me unable to separate the vintage and very anachronistic vibe of the watches – especially the rouleaux bracelet and crown – from the modernized direction Breitling was taking the collection. Here,

we see that new direction in full force: elegance, comfort, and sportiness, with good build quality in a design language that is quintessentially Breitling. And to top it off, a competitive price point I expect we will see more of in the future.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised – of course, there would be improvements over time and these modern bracelets would have better tolerances and less flex – but the first thing I noticed super clone rolex was how well the watch wore, from the comfortable bracelet to the slimmed-down and more wearable case. There’s a reason so many Rolex GMT-Master II owners have embraced jubilee bracelets over the “classic” oyster bracelet. In the same way, the shorter distance between links allows the bracelet to wrap well around your wrist.

I’m a bracelet geek but I’d imagine that the sunray-esque dials will be the stars of the show for most potential buyers. The iridescent sheen, especially the blue and green, is captivating (and, if you’re buying watches and hoping to photograph them, frustratingly reflective). The blue dial goes very deep blue,

almost black in a darkened environment, and then pops to life with any splash of light. No matter the locale, the green is dramatic and eye-catching. The sleeper hit might be the anthracite grey dial, which blends in well with the case and picks up a bit of warmth and brown tones from the light in an environment.

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The white and black dials didn’t get much mention (or photo time, apologies) because while solid options, the comparatively matte finish didn’t garner as much attention from me in my short time, hands-on.

The simplified placement of the 24-hour markers on the rehaut is a nice touch. For all the good a GMT does, I don’t find a big difference in my day-to-day life between catching the time at a glance and spending five seconds looking more closely for a second time zone. And not that the general population takes issue with wearing sport watches in more formal environments, but the lack of bulky bezel with any colors or numbers adds a certain level of elegance.

There’s not a ton to say about the movement, based on the ETA 2893-2, which is pretty standard across the industry. I will say, the more I actively review GMTs and pay attention to specifications,

the more it surprises me that there aren’t more “flyer” GMT movements on the market. With the introduction of the ETA caliber C07.661 and Miyota 9075, I’m hopeful we’ll see more brands switch away from the 2893-2 in future iterations. That said, this is pretty standard and should be reliable, albeit with a 42 hour power reserve that might be a point of contention for some buyers.

My Dad’s Omega Constellation Keeps Me Connected To His Life

In Watch of the Week, we invite Hodinkee staffers and friends to tell us a personal story they have about a watch. The author of today’s feature is William Li,

the co-founder of The Hao Life, a modern Chinese wellness brand, and a former executive at Condé Nast and Ralph Lauren Home.

My mom used to tell me that it would take my dad longer than her to get dressed and ready to go out. He was apparently quite the dapper gentleman, someone who cared about every little detail. I know that the two of them made for a very beautiful couple,

but I unfortunately never really knew him personally. My dad died in his early 40s when I was just three years old. He was a very young man, and I was a very young boy.

I grew up in a very traditional Chinese immigrant family, which meant the subject of death was rarely, if ever, discussed due to superstition. So my mom almost never talked about my dad when I was younger. In fact, it wasn’t until I graduated from high school that I was able to really connect with his memory, after my mom gifted me a watch of his that I never knew existed.

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One day, we went to our safety deposit box in the basement of the old Bowery Savings Bank. She took out an Omega Constellation, put it on my wrist, and said, “I want you to have this. You didn’t really know your father. This is really the only thing I have left of him; I want you to have it.”

In the years that followed, I started asking more and more questions about it – and about him.

It turns out that my dad had quite an interesting life.

My mom and dad were both born in Guangzhou, China. He was from a village where quite a few men were immigrating to Cuba. The Chinese were brought to Cuba in the late 1800s and early 1900s to work as indentured laborers.

There ended up being a huge Chinese population in Havana; at one point there were at least 100,000 Chinese men working in the sugar plantations to earn their freedom. My dad was lured to Havana by relatives who had a grocery store there.

My dad always liked nice things, and he worked hard in the restaurant to save money so he could buy a few nice things to wear on special occasions and to court my mom. In his mind,

my dad was this debonair kind of guy, despite the fact he was working in a kitchen trying to build a life for himself in New York.

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Another one of the things he saved his money for was this Omega.

My mom told me all of this after she gave me his watch.