An Ocean of Blue: Seven Bucherer Blue Watches at the Bucherer 1888 Time Machine in NYC


After many months of anticipation, the new Bucherer 1888 57th Street flagship store, formerly the Tourneau Time Machine, had its grand re-opening this fall after an extensive renovation and re-branding under the ownership of the Bucherer Group, which acquired Tourneau in 2018. Among the many exciting items the revamped store offers are the first-ever Bucherer Blue Edition timepieces sold in the United States. A staple of Bucherer’s European boutiques, these blue-detailed watches are sure to find an avid audience in the U.S. Here are seven Bucherer Blue timepieces that took their bow at the opening of the New York flagship.

The blue tones of the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe Bucherer Blue Editions also evoke that watch’s longstanding connection to the marine world, since the original model debuted in 1956 as a military-style dive watch for civilian divers. The 44-mm case and its unidirectional rotating bezel is made of brushed blue ceramic and water-resistant to 300 meters. The sunburst-finish dark blue dial has luminous-coated hour markers and central hours and minute hands that echo the look of their vintage forebears; the date appears in a small window at 4:30; and the large, central seconds hand has a red tip. Inside is Blancpain’s self-winding caliber 1315, with three series-coupled mainspring barrels holding a power reserve of five days reserve while guaranteeing a constant supply of energy. The movement, which is visible through the watch’s clear sapphire caseback, has a balance-spring made of silicon, Price: $14,800.

Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe Bucherer Blue

The Breitling Navitimer Chronograph 41 Bucherer Blue is a vibrant blue-dialed edition of one of the watch world’s most iconic pilots’ chronographs, with a 41-mm steel case and the hallmark bidirectional rotating bezel with slide-rule scale for making flight calculations. The tricompax dial features subdials at 12, 9, and 6 o’clock, a date window at 3 o’clock, and Super-LumiNova-coated hands. The movement inside the watch, behind a screwed, solid caseback, is Breitling’s Caliber 13, a COSC-chronometer-certified movement that is wound automatically by a unilaterally acting ball-bearing rotor to amass a power reserve of more than 42 hours. The convex sapphire crystal has anti-reflective coating on both sides, and the blue of the alligator strap echoes the tones of the dial. Exclusive to the U.S., this watch is priced at $7,250.

Breitling Navitimer Chronograph 41 Bucherer Blue

Owned by the same family as the retailer, watchmaker Carl F. Bucherer joins the Bucherer Blue family for the first time with another U.S.-exclusive model, the Heritage Bicompax Annual Bucherer Blue, notable for its striking gradient dial. Directly inspired by a chronograph from 1956 that was discovered in the Lucerne-based brand’s archives, the watch combines an annual calendar with a chronograph, in a 41-mm steel case. The annual calendar indicator consists of a big date indicator in the upper half of the dial and a month aperture tilted between 4 and 5 o’clock. The dial’s historically inspired details include syringe-shaped hands, vintage-style Arabic numerals, and elongated chronograph pushers. Ticking inside is the automatic ETA-based Caliber CFB 1972 with a 42-hour power reserve. On this special edition, the caseback is etched with an homage to the New York City skyline. The watch is limited to just 30 pieces, in tribute to 1930, the year the first Tourneau store opened in the Big Apple. Price: $7,200.

Carl F. Bucherer Heritage Bicompax Annual Bucherer Blue

Girard-Perregaux’s Laureato Absolute Light Bucherer Blue takes the famous octagonal-bezel design of its Laureato design into avant-garde territory with a 44-mm case formed from a block of sapphire crystal that has been grown, milled and polished over a period of 300 hours. The Bucherer Blue color tone is used more subtly in this model, which is limited to 18 pieces, notably in the blue PVD used for the octagonal mainplate, which takes the form of the bezel and forms the base for the openworked movement. Blue tones also find their way onto the skeletonized bridges of Girard-Perregaux’s Caliber GP01800-1652, whose mechanical details are bathed in light from the transparent case. Titanium lugs connect the watch to a strap made of GP rubber alloy, a new material unveiled by the brand this year that is made from rubber injected with titanium. Price: $94,770.

Girard-Perregaux Laureato Absolute Light Bucherer Blue

Longines introduced its Spirit collection in 2020 as a modern homage to the timepieces that the venerable Swiss watchmaker made for pioneering aviators in the early 20th Century like Amelia Earhart and Howard Hughes. The first Bucherer Blue Editions of the series, one a three-hand, time-only model, the other a chronograph, are both outfitted in sleek black DLC case with Bucherer Blue accents on the black dial — like the five stars historically used by Longines to denote the highest quality of watchmaking — creating contrasts with the watches’ overall monochromatic look. The three-hand watch has a 40-mm case containing the COSC-certified Caliber L888.4, with a 72-hour power reserve and an antimagnetic silicon balance spring. Aside from its black-and-blue livery, the watch differs from other three-hand Spirit models by eschewing a date window for a cleaner face. The Spirit Chronograph is slightly larger, at 42 mm in diameter, and contains the proprietary, COSC-certified Caliber L688.4, equipped with a column-wheel chronograph function. Prices are $2,900 for the three-hand Spirit and $3,700 for the Spirit Chronograph.

Longines Spirit Bucherer Blue
Longines Spirit Chronograph Bucherer Blue

Oris has used its Aquis Date divers’ watch as a canvas for numerous bold colorways in recent years. One of the latest is the Oris Aquis Date Bucherer Blue, which features a shiny blue sunray-brushed dial and interchangeable rubber straps in a complementary blue color. One of Oris’s most popular models, the Aquis Date has a 43-mm case made of stainless steel, which boasts a water resistance of 300 meters. Its unidirectional rotating bezel has a steel insert with a diving scale in relief, and its steel crown screws securely into the case, nestling into two shoulder-like crown guards. Price: $2,600.

No Responses to “An Ocean of Blue: Seven Bucherer Blue Watches at the Bucherer 1888 Time Machine in NYC”

Show all responses
Leave a Reply