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Reviews On Comparison Between Replica Breitling Superocean Heritage I And II UK Watches

A funny thing happened while I was in the midst of the drawn out process of reviewing Breitling’s “original” (modern) Superocean Heritage watch – Breitling decided to release a brand new model with the Breitling Superocean Heritage II that debuted at Baselworld 2017. The Breitling Superocean Heritage II is actually a few different models comprised of various styles of the 42mm-wide three-hand model, the 46mm-wide three-hand model, and the 46mm-wide chronograph. This article is meant to compare and contrast the first generation Breitling Superocean Heritage I with the replacement “next generation” Superocean Heritage II. An interesting change about the watch – which I will discuss more below – is that for the three-hand models Breitling is now using Tudor movements – imagine that.

The new Superocean Heritage
 
The outgoing Breitling Superocean Heritage

Changes to the Superocean Heritage II over the I are subtle but important. What Breitling really did is address the “aging” of the Superocean Heritage, which was about materials and parts over design. The Swiss movements copy Breitling Superocean Heritage was and continues to be a solid money-maker for Breitling, being one of its most popular and attractive models. The Superocean name is derived from a historic diving watch of the same name released about 70 years ago by Breitling, whose look was “revived” in the Superocean Heritage. As a “vintage-inspired” diving watch, the Superocean Heritage lived alongside more “modern” (in design) diving watches from Breitling such as the (non “Heritage”) Superocean. Since we have photos of both the Generation I and Generation II in this review, the fastest way to identify them is by looking at the hour and minute hand. If the hour hand is bisected and the minute hand sports a more dramatic tapering, it’s the Generation II.

While it is increasingly common for luxury watch brands to follow “The Rolex Way” of updating existing models over and over again as time goes on, the practice is more rare than you might be led to believe. Though, in recent years brands have seen value in sticking to “pillar” products and continually refining them over time in order to make them appealing to new customers as well as to encourage existing customers to upgrade. That is really only something you can do with a good core design. Breitling has more or less followed this strategy, but in a very different way, While they certainly have their share of pillar models, there are instances when new generation versions of existing names aren’t necessarily improved previous versions. Sometimes they are merely “different,” without a clear reason why.

Generation I
 
Generation II

The 2017 Superocean Heritage II is much more clear in its purpose – and that is not to re-imagine the look of the Superocean Heritage collection, but rather to make it more modern. Some of the design decisions might be controversial, but for the most part, the Superocean Heritage II is everything we loved about the Superocean Heritage I, with some more modern materials and in the case of the three-hand version, a new movement.

A very important question to ask yourself is whether or not you should get a good deal on a previous generation Superocean Heritage I or pony up for the brand new fake Breitling Superocean Heritage II. Is one a solid upgrade over the other, or are both models appealing in their own way? In fact, a very good argument could be made that while the Superocean Heritage II has some clear improvements over the first generation model, depending on your taste (and ability to find a deal), the previous generation Superocean Heritage watch might be just as good if not better for your needs.

Breitling makes a very solid-feeling watch, which in my opinion starts with the case. The brand is particularly good at serving up well-polished heavy blocks of steel. While a lot of modern dive watches offer complicated cases with contrast finishing and other interesting design elements, the Superocean Heritage is all about appearing like a retro tank. The 42mm-wide or 46mm-wide steel case is entirely polished (with a great finishing) and water resistant to 200m. With that said, it feels like it could take a lot more of a beating. The vintage-inspired design eschews a lot of modern things you might expect to see in a diving watch (such as crown guards). So, the elegance and attractive design of the Superocean Heritage made up for its lack of being a totally “pro” diving instrument.

The Superocean Heritage II replica watch with best performance online  is a bit more “pro worthy” but you can see that the design decisions come at the expense of aesthetics. So let’s first talk about how the unidirectional rotating bezel of the Superocean Heritage II differs from that of the original model. This is one of two major visible ways the Superocean Heritage I and II models all differ from one another. In doing the video part of the review for the Superocean Heritage 46, I mentioned that the most “age showing” part of the watch in terms of its product lifespan was the anodized aluminum / or coated steel (I’m not sure the specific metal used) bezel insert. Ceramic bezels are far more preferred and valued these days simply because they have colors which will last forever, and because they are extremely scratch resistant. With the Superocean Heritage II Breitling correctly upgraded the bezel from a metal version to a ceramic one – and it comes in black, brown, and blue.

The ceramic bezel doesn’t look exactly the same, and the metal one, with its very simple markers was a bit more elegant looking. The Superocean Heritage II’s ceramic bezel is very similar, but has a bit more of a matte finish (to be expected) and now a Super-LumiNova luminant-filled pip at 12 o’clock on the rotating bezel. This ups the functional cred of the Superocean Heritage II, but it does take a bit away from the quasi-minimalist yet masculine design that made the original Superocean Heritage so lovely and charming.

In pictures the lume pip on the bezel is barely noticeable, and in person it is a bit more obvious. I wouldn’t say that this feature is not welcome as it does add functionality, but the lume does take away a bit from the original appeal of the design – which never apologized for making some aesthetic decisions in lieu of functional considerations. What I really would have liked for Breitling to do is introduce a bezel that looked exactly the same as the original, in ceramic, with each of the markers on the bezel painted in white luminant. Thus, the entire bezel could have been lumed, but without visually changing the character of the overall watch.

Under the sapphire crystal is a dial on the supeior fake Breitling Superocean Heritage II which is remarkably similar to that of the Superocean Heritage I. One change is that the date window is at 6 o’clock on both the 46mm-wide and 42mm-wide versions – previously the 42mm model had the date at the less desirable 3 o’clock hour marker that tended to screw with dial symmetry. The Superocean Heritage II changes the style of the text on the dial just a bit, though the text actually says the same thing. The sizing and other minor details are all that are changed.

The biggest dial change in the Superocean Heritage II over the I is the design of the hands. I really (really) liked the design of the Superocean Heritage I hands with the straight sword-like minute hand and the simple arrow-style hour hand. Breitling decided to mess with a good thing and produce new hands for the Superocean Heritage II, which are a bit more inspired by the hands on original Superocean dive watches from 1957. That means you still get a sword-style minute hand and an arrow-style hour hand – but now they are of a different design – and I’m on the fence about how I feel with them.

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How To Give Breitling Wings To UK Reliable Breitling Fake Watches By Georges Kern?

What Georges Kern might do to fix the storied maker of pilot’s watches.
The recent departure of Richemont watch boss Georges Kern was a surprise, as was the fact that he was leaving to run Breitling, recently acquired by CVC Capital Partners. Promoted to head of watchmaking, marketing and digital at the Swiss luxury group only in April 2017, Kern’s elevation was the result of his triumphant 14-year stint as CEO of IWC.

With Kern in charge IWC saw its revenue grow almost eight-fold to an estimated SFr800m, making it the biggest pure-play watchmaker in Richemont. Those very talents are surely why he was tapped to be Breitling’s saviour, and offered the upside of an equity stake, by the financiers at CVC, the European private equity outfit best known for having quadrupled its investment in Formula One after selling the sport earlier this year.

Kern’s formula for success at IWC is well known, a strategy that included recruiting celebrity ambassadors as well as making watches more visually accessible with warmer and more modern colours. Some, or perhaps most, of that will surely be applied to Breitling, which is essentially a maker of sporty aviator’s watches; pilot’s watches accounted for over a third of production at IWC. What might the turnaround plan include?

Building the pillars of the brand

One of Kern’s favoured product strategies, which he implemented at IWC but also at two other brands he oversaw, Baume & Mercier and Roger Dubuis, is to reinforce the strongest product lines as “pillars” of the brand. Consequently IWC has two bestselling pillars that practically define the brand, the Portugieser and Pilot’s, which together make up around three-quarters of sales. The two are backed up by the fast-growing Portofino line, plus the Aquatimer, Da Vinci and Ingenieur for the small number of consumers who want something else.

The brand pillars will only sell well if the product within are appealing. At IWC the product range evolved from being uncompromisingly masculine and technical to something glamorous and alluring. Pilot’s watches, for instance, went to being a no-nonense remake of the Mark 11 issued to 1950s RAF pilot’s to timepieces co-branded “Top Gun” or the whimsical St. Exupery.

Breitling’s catalogue currently lists 12 collections of Swiss copy watches, some of which blend into each other (Navitimer vs Montbrillant anyone?). Fortunately the Navitimer and Chronomat are ready-made brand pillars, being the most recognisable products that also have the strongest history, and accompanying tale to sell. Odds are the two lines will be the focus for the first couple of quarters, along with a third collection of historical-remake watches that are the flavour du jour across the industry.

Since the goal is to bring the excitement of aviation and fighter pilots to the ordinary consumer who does not want an overly extreme or expensive wristwatch, even watches within the new pillars will undergo some tweaks, ranging from the prosaic to the philosophical. Despite the dozen lines that make up Breitling’s line-up at the moment, the dominant colour is black. If Kern’s track record at IWC is anything to go by, blue, brown, grey, “warmer” colours as he puts them, will become more prominent.

As consumer tastes are now more practical, the comically large watches that are 46mm, 48mm, and 50mm will become fond memories or better still, highly sought-after limited editions. At IWC the oversized and bulky Ingenieur watches – after many years of reiterating the same idea – were mostly abandoned in favour of modestly sized, affordably priced models.

And to achieve affordable prices, there will probably be a return to low-cost, outsourced movements, which means less of the pricey in-house Breitling 01 movement (the same calibre Breitling sells to Tudor), or a developing a lower cost movement, which is what IWC did. Best-performance replica Breitling chronographs with an in-house movement account for about a quarter of output at Breitling, but cost almost double otherwise identical models powered by the Valjoux 7750. Already many of the latest Pilot’s watches at IWC cannily rely on Sellita or ETA movements, or “manufacture” movements built on the foundations of an ETA.

At the same time, Breitling’s pool of celebrity ambassadors will probably grow from its current pool of one, since its only other ambassador just decamped for Tudor. John Travolta has been a Breitling ambassador for over a decade and is now 63 years old, so it stands to reason that a more diverse group of ambassadors in tune with current pop culture is on the cards as well.

In contrast, IWC counts amongst its “friends of the brand” Kevin Spacey, Karolina Kurkova and Adriana Lima. Intriguingly, insiders say that IWC’s friends are literally friends, instead of contracted personalities as many celebrity endorsements are. So the question will be: whose friends are they?

Making friends around the world

Of the world’s 20 largest luxury watchmakers, only six are independent – that includes Breitling – and do not belong to a luxury conglomerate like LVMH or the Swatch Group. And of that six, four control majority of their distribution worldwide, only Breitling and Franck Muller do not. Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet and Chopard own most local distributors across the world, giving them both flexibility and discipline in prices and how to sell watches.

While Breitling does own some key national distributors, in the USA, UK and Japan (where it is outstandingly successful with its Breitling owner’s club), much of its distribution network is independent, even in major markets. Germany is handled by Trautmann, Brazil by Watch Time, while China, Hong Kong and much of South-East Asia is run by Melchers.

The reason that matters is pricing discipline, which usually translates into increased brand equity. Anecdotal evidence would indicate there are more fake Breitling watches sales hot on the grey market than IWC: there are just over 3700 IWC watches described as “new” on eBay, compared to over 7800 for Breitling. Even adjusting for Breitling’s bigger output by volume, making perhaps 40% more units than IWC, that is a major disparity.

When Richemont acquired IWC in 2000, distribution was similarly fragmented. Most of its Asian distribution, for example, was undertaken by Hagemeyer-Cosa Liebermann, a Dutch trading house now owned by its Swiss rival DKSH. Now IWC is distributed by the local or regional Richemont office in practically every market, alongside all the other brands in the group’s stable. Economies of scale in back office functions like distribution are a crucial reason why luxury conglomerates work.

Breitling, on the other hand, is one of the smallest independently-owned watchmakers, less than half the size of the next largest, Chopard (which also sells jewellery). Consequently, Breitling probably lacks the financial muscle to control distribution globally. The solution might instead be a ruthless but prudent pruning of distributors and retailers, with greater reliance on reliable partners.

Feasible only with strong, hands-on leadership, that would be similar to what Jean-Claude Biver practiced as he turned Hublot around. Even after Hublot was acquired by LVMH, the watchmaker still retains independent distributors in important markets like South-East Asia where it works with The Hour Glass, and Ares Distributors in the USA.

While it is his time at IWC that made Georges Kern a power player in the watch industry, it is perhaps his earlier role in TAG Heuer that might be instructive as to what will unfold at Breitling. Before joining Richemont in 2000, just after it acquired the group that owned IWC, Jaeger-LeCoultre and A. Lange & Söhne, Kern spent eight years at TAG Heuer, which was then the most acclaimed turnaround story in watchmaking. It was his first job in the watch business, following a short stay at Kraft, and one that Kern has stated was a formative experience.

In 1988, a trio of Booz Allen Hamilton management consultants were hired by the Saudi-owned investment firm Techniques d’Avant Garde (TAG) to rebuild the ailing business. The three consultants, including brand president Christian Viros, embarked on a strategy of aggressive outsourcing and even more aggressive marketing (with the tagline “Don’t Crack Under Pressure” that’s been revived recently), leading to revenue growth of averaging almost 30% a year.

By the time of the NYSE IPO in 1996, sales topped US$300m, some six-times what they were in 1988. The stock offering was 10-times oversubscribed, allowing its owners to make several times their initial investment, and the three consultants to walk away with reputed eight-figure payouts. And that is probably what CVC and Kern will hope to do.