A Gallet stopwatch called “The Sun” once timed the Wright brothers’ first powered flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903.
Now, Gallet, the Swiss watchmaker founded in 1826 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, is back for its 200th anniversary, relaunched as a sibling brand to Breitling, which will manufacture every new watch.
The comeback spans four collections: The Flying Officer, first introduced in 1939 and famously worn by President Harry Truman, returns at 40mm in a chronograph and a three-hand version, with a rotating bezel reworked around 24 modern destinations. It’s priced at $2,900 for the automatic, $4,400 for the chronograph.
The Multichron Pilot, a 42mm exploration watch with a telemeter scale and second-timezone tracking, and the Multichron Sport, a 41mm motorsport-inspired chronograph with a tachymeter scale, both run $4,400 on strap.
Rounding things out is the Gallet Classics, a trio of 38mm hand-wound pieces: the Tribute to Multichron Yachting Big Eye, Tribute to Multichron 45, and Tribute to Silverlight, each powered by Breitling’s manufacture Caliber B09 and priced at $6,700.
Resurrecting a dead brand? Try some outside infrastructure
Reviving a dormant Swiss name is usually a rough bet because there are plenty of players in the game already, and that’s just the image problem; we’re not even talking about manufacturing (or sourcing) the watches themselves. Gallet skips that latter problem entirely by leaning on Breitling for the movements, the distribution, and the after-sales service, while keeping its own design language.
On the plus side for them, their archive is a strong one to pull from. The Flying Officer wasn’t just a nice-looking travel watch — it was the first wristwatch that let a pilot calculate time zone changes on the fly, and it’s the kind of pedigree that gives a relaunch some muscle.
Whether the new lineup lives up to that history is a question to be answered over time, but the pricing at least puts it within reach of first-time luxury watch buyers: $2,900 gets you into the story of a brand that timed the Wright brothers, without needing Breitling money to do it.
Where to buy it
The Gallet relaunch is available now through gallet.com, with pricing from $2,900 for the Flying Officer Automatic up to $6,700 for the Gallet Classics tribute pieces.
