Breitling Transocean Watch

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed)
Dec 15th 2010 at 12:01PM

With design features hearkening back to the 1950s and 1960s, and as dedicated to some of the original "long-haul" aircraft, Breitling offers a completely new timepiece collection with the Transocean. While Breitling regularly updates or adds to its existing timepiece collections, the release of something totally new is special. The Swiss brand puts a lot of thought in to its designs, so I take a close look at the new pieces they release. With retro being still very "in," Breitling has hit a home run with the Transocean for fans of the retro trend, as well as fans of the brand.

Interestingly enough, the Transocean moves away from a core element that exists in almost every current Breitling watch - a rotating bezel. The lack of this design element so popular to Breitling watches really make you take are second look at the piece to see what brand it is. While the dial is extremely true to Breitling's core aesthetic, it has been toned down, and given a more genteel personality. Applied metal (steel or gold) baton style hour markers and recessed chronograph subdials help add depth to it. Aside from the tachymeter scale, there is little to busy up the face. Lume is placed as thin strip in the hands and as dots behind the hour markers. The angularity of the hand and hour markers add a utilitarian and purposeful looking, contrasting the roundness of almost all the other design features.

Retro concepts carry to the style of the pushers as well as the flared lugs (this style lug was so popular in the 1960s). An interesting design note is the "double" bezel." The polished bezel gives way to the domed sapphire crystal over the dial but you can see another strip metal directly under the crystal next to the exposed bezel - interesting. Breitling will offer four versions of the Transocean Chronograph to start. At 43mm in width the dial will be available in black or "mercury silver," in a steel or 18k red gold case.

The watch uses Breitling's now well-known in-house made Caliber 01 automatic chronograph movement. You can see the movement through a sapphire caseback window. The 01 is known as a relatively affordable in-house made chronograph movement compared to some of Breitling competitors. Breitling also provides the watch movment with a COSC Chronometer certification. The Transocean in comes with an optional mesh metal bracelet, and all versions are available with a leather or crocodile strap. Not sure about all the prices, the steel version is said to have a starting price of $7,600. As an added bonus, the first 2,000 steel and 200 red gold Transocean watches will be available as limited editions only. After that the Transocean will be part of Breitling's standard product line.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch reviews site aBlogtoRead.com.

Gallery: Breitling Transocean Watch