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A ‘new’ Breitling takes off with a revamped Navitimer collection

- Alvin Wong

With a new chief pilot in the incomparable Georges Kern charting its course, Breitling is set for some big changes. Speculation has been rife since Kern left his post as the Richemont Group’s head of marketing in July last year, vacating a position that many saw as the luxury conglomerate’s watch division’s second-in-charge. When it was subsequently revealed that he did so to head Breitling as its new CEO—in which he now holds a minor stake, after the erstwhile family-owned company was sold to CVC Capital Partners for a reported US$912 million—the questions started to really mount, of which the most consequential is: how would Breitling evolve under Kern’s leadership?

Kern has a reputation for being a visionary and a clinical businessman in equal measure, distinguished by his no-holds-barred decision-making approach. This attitude and ideology served him well during his time at Richemont, where he steered IWC Schaffhausen to huge commercial success. Given his track record, watch buffs and industry folks are now watching Breitling keenly, wondering if Kern can replicate his success. The short answer to that, for the time being, at least, is found in the new Breitling Navitimer 8 collection.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that for his first move, Kern has opted to take on the Navitimer, arguably Breitling’s most famous watch collection. On the one hand, this feels like a statement of intent, showing us that no horological icon is too big for evolution. On the other hand, expanding the Navitimer family seems like a logical first step to take; by having Breitling’s biggest selling watch set the pace, Kern’s brand rebuilding exercise that will soon follow will be more comprehensively defined.