Bell & Ross BR-05 Chrono Snow Rocket

The BR-05 Chrono Snow Rocket costs $7,700 on a grooved red rubber strap, or $8,250 on a stainless-steel bracelet. Bell & Ross is making 250 of them. The watch marks Simon Billy's 255.50 km/h speed-skiing record, set in 2023, and the colour scheme is literal: red for his competition suit, white for the snow he set it on.

The case is 42mm wide and 14.25mm thick, in steel with satin-finished and polished surfaces, water-resistant to 100 metres with a screw-down crown. That is unchanged BR-05 territory. The changes are on the dial. Red italicised numerals replace the usual Arabic 12 and 6 with indexes elsewhere, and the hour and minute hands are shaped like elongated competition skis rather than the skeletonised metal hands on other BR-05 Chronos. The date has also moved, from between 4 and 5 o'clock to a centred position at 6, which balances the dial against the 30-minute counter at 3 and the small seconds at 9.

Inside is the automatic BR-CAL.326, based on the Sellita SW510, running at 28,800 vibrations per hour with a 60-hour power reserve. This is the movement architecture Bell & Ross moved to with the Green Steel version, replacing the modular ETA 2894-2 used in earlier BR-05 Chronos. Through the sapphire caseback sits a red silhouette of a speed skier, the one detail that only the owner sees.

The tachymeter scale on the inner bezel is functional, not decorative: paired with the chronograph seconds hand, it is built to measure speed, which is the one piece of this watch that actually does what the theme promises.