Breitling Premier watches

The Breitling Premier is the brand's dress-oriented line, built around a round case, a narrow bezel and, on the chronographs, a balanced two-register dial. Breitling says Willy Breitling conceived the Premier in the early 1940s as the brand's first line dedicated to style, and that it was reintroduced as a modern collection in 2018.

The modern line runs on several Breitling calibres. Breitling describes the B01, used in the Premier B01 Chronograph 42, as an automatic movement with roughly 70 hours of power reserve; Breitling developed the B01 in 2009 as a self-winding column-wheel chronograph calibre. The Premier Heritage pieces use the hand-wound B09 in a 40 mm chronograph, the split-seconds B15 in the Duograph, and the B25, which adds a full calendar and moon phase, in the Datora.

The simplest Premiers are the Automatic 40 and the Automatic Day & Date 40, both 40 mm and 11.4 mm thick. At 42 mm, the Chronograph 42 and the B01 Chronograph 42 look alike, but the B01 version is a touch slimmer, at 13.65 mm against 13.8 mm. The Heritage side covers the B09 Chronograph 40, the B15 Duograph 42, the B25 Datora 42 and the B21 Chronograph Tourbillon. Cases are steel or red gold, with silver, blue and black the usual dials and anthracite and green alongside. Many references differ only in what the watch is worn on: a bracelet, or leather with a folding, tang or pin clasp.

Limited editions include the Bentley Centenary and Bentley Mulliner pieces, a Wheels and Waves edition, a Japan Special Edition and a Tokyo Boutique Automatic 40 of 50 pieces.