Breitling Montbrillant watches

The Breitling Montbrillant is a pilot's chronograph with a circular slide rule, styled after the brand's watches of the 1940s and 1950s. Its name comes from the building on Montbrillant Street in La Chaux-de-Fonds that housed Breitling's workshops from 1892 to 1979. Those were the years of the brand's first independent chronograph pushpiece in 1915, a second independent pushpiece in 1934 and its first self-winding chronograph in 1969.

The core Montbrillant is a compact chronograph, 38 mm across and 13 mm thick, in steel or pink gold, with the slide rule turning on the bezel. The steel watch also exists as a Japan special edition in the same case. The Montbrillant Datora is the larger sibling at 43 mm and 14.1 mm, in steel or red gold, and the steel Montbrillant Olympus sits in between at 42.1 mm.

The Montbrillant Légende is the big one: a 47 mm case, 15 mm thick, in steel or in steel and rose gold. The Montbrillant 47 (A2335121) is a steel model of the same diameter with a black dial.

The Montbrillant 01 moved the line to Breitling's own Caliber 01, a self-winding column-wheel chronograph with a 70-hour power reserve and COSC chronometer certification, on show through a sapphire caseback. Breitling presented it in February 2011 as twin limited editions, 2,000 in steel and 200 in red gold, with a Mercury Silver dial. The 40 mm case is 13.5 mm thick, and the watch also comes with an Aurora Blue dial; the steel Aurora Blue on a bracelet (AB0130C5) is limited to 500 pieces.