Long before influencer partnerships existed, Miles Davis was doing unpaid brand work for Breitling just by wearing his Navitimer on stage. The watchmaker is finally returning the favor with a 500-piece tribute marking the jazz legend’s centennial.
Davis famously wore a Breitling Navitimer ref. 806 Mk5 throughout the 1960s, and this new release is built to recreate the specifics of that exact watch rather than just gesture at the era.
The 41mm steel case matches the original’s diameter, and inside is the hand-wound Manufacture Calibre B09, a throwback to the pre-automatic Navitimers Davis actually wore.
The dial recreates the monochrome reverse-panda layout, complete with cream-toned vintage Super-LumiNova on the markers and the era-appropriate “Twin Jet” logo, the civilian retailer emblem that distinguished non-AOPA editions at the time.
Breitling has also brought back the Air Racer bracelet, a design that’s been out of the catalog since 2019.
It’s priced at $8,900 on leather and $9,600 on the Air Racer bracelet.
There’s also a 50-piece “Lifetime Club Member Set,” which bundles three versions of the watch — steel, 18K yellow gold, and platinum — inside a presentation case styled after a trumpet case, with blue lining referencing Davis’s album Kind of Blue. It’s priced at $96,000.
The Miles Davis watch is a preview of something bigger
That Lifetime Club Member Set name isn’t just flourish. It ties into a new membership program Breitling is calling the Breitling Social Club, set to open in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in late 2027.
Buying the standard Miles Davis edition gets buyers a two-year membership; the $96,000 three-watch set gets buyers in for life.
Breitling hasn’t said much else about what the space will actually be yet, but the framing puts it somewhere between a members’ club and a brand headquarters people can actually visit.
It’s a smart way to test the concept, and a fitting move for a brand that already sits comfortably among the best luxury watches money can buy.
Rather than opening the Social Club cold and hoping the right crowd shows up, Breitling is using one of its most historically specific tributes to hand-pick an initial membership base — people who cared enough about a watch tied to Miles Davis, not just Breitling in general, to buy in early.
That’s a different kind of exclusivity than a straightforward waitlist, and it shows that the brand is taking this club as a long-term project rather than a one-off marketing stunt.
Where to buy it
The Breitling Navitimer B09 Chronograph 41 Tribute to Miles Davis is available now at breitling.com, priced at $8,900 on leather or $9,600 on the Air Racer bracelet. The Lifetime Club Member Set is priced at $96,000.
