Complicated watches have stood the test of time
It was hard to imagine - when mass-produced cheap and cheerful quartz watches were all the rage two decades ago - that costly and chunky mechanical watches would eventually be back in favour.
A few years into the revived mechanical fad, the trend looks set to stay. Even fashion houses that usually pay more attention to designs than mechanisms are adding token mechanical models to their trendy collections. Swiss watchmakers boast a long heritage in complicated watchmaking and have a definite advantage in the mechanical game. One Swiss watchmaker to cash in on its strong mechanical heritage is Brietling, which stuck to making mechanical watches against the quartz tide 20 years ago when it produced Chronomat to the specification of the Italian flight team, Frecce Tricoloril.
The chunky self-winding mechanical chronograph movement raised eyebrows then, amid chic thin quartz watches, but the flight team was sold on the idea for its lack of risk on battery failure. Since then, the watch was said to have 'heralded the renaissance of the mechanical chronograph'.
TWENTY YEARS ON, Brietling has updated the watch and introduced Chronomat Evolution in a limited edition of 1,000 in steel and 100 in white gold to mark its 120th anniversary.
The watch, sporting the Italian air force logo, has a diameter of 43.7mm, compared with the original 39mm, and has screw-locked safety push-pieces, making it water-resistant up to 300 metres.
