Breitling launches the Super Chronomat Origins

By 2025, Breitling’s entire product portfolio will feature better gold and better diamonds: artisanal gold and lab-grown diamonds, responsibly sourced from accredited suppliers. To be fully accountable to its mission, Breitling is also introducing end-to-end traceability.

Until now, there have been limits on how far you could trace precious materials. Even when following industry best practices, tracking gold and the small “melee” diamonds used in watchmaking to their origins had been nearly impossible. By default, these raw materials tend to be combined from many different sources – meaning their provenance literally gets lost in the mix.

Breitling wanted to do better. The better gold and better diamonds used in Super Chronomat Origins enable the brand to know that its precious materials are free from association with conflict or human rights abuses. The watchmaking house is also able to assess the social and environmental impact all along the supply chain. The entire chain of custody has been independently verified and recorded in a blockchain-backed NFT that comes with every Super Chronomat Origins.

For Super Chronomat Origins, Breitling has sourced gold from a single artisanal mine that meets the Swiss Better Gold Association’s criteria. The association improves working, living and environmental conditions in artisanal and small-scale (ASM) gold mining communities and facilitates the creation of responsible supply chains to the Swiss market.

Breitling is working toward having all of its gold traceable to specific ASM mines by 2025. For every gramme of gold purchased, Breitling makes a contribution that supports local community development projects. Communities in turn benefit from infrastructure investment, legal wages, healthy working conditions, protection of biodiversity and, at the close of mining activities, land rehabilitation.

The lab-grown diamonds used in Super Chronomat Origins feature type IIa single-crystal diamonds, which qualify as the most valued and purest type of diamonds. They are created by applying gas and heat to a diamond slice in a vacuum. Under the heat, the gas develops into a cloud of plasma, creating the conditions that allow the diamond to crystallise and grow. Lab-grown diamonds are identical to mined diamonds and subject to the same rigorous quality testing.

By 2024, Breitling will have completed a transition to lab-grown diamonds across its entire product portfolio, all of them traceable to growers who meet a high standard of social and environmental performance in addition to a stringent requirement of climate neutrality. For every carat purchased, Breitling makes a contribution to a social impact fund that supports diamond-producing communities.

Super Chronomat Origins owners receive a precious materials’ provenance record as part of their blockchain-backed NFT. Since 2020, every new Breitling timepiece has come with this unique digital proof of ownership.

The Super Chronomat Automatic 38 Origins stands out from the rest of the Chronomat family by the ceramic rider tabs and crown as well as the rubber rouleaux (roller) bracelet only available with this supercharged line. But aside from its enhanced presence, this new watch has another important statement to make. It is the beginning of Breitling’s mission to do better.

November 17, 2022