Georges Kern Is Betting Gallet Can Reach Buyers Breitling Misses

November 4, 2026 / Sophie Clearwater /

Georges Kern. Courtesy Gallet

Priced under $3,000 on a strap, Gallet’s new Flying Officer Automatic gives Breitling CEO Georges Kern another chance with the buyer who finds Breitling too exorbitant. It keeps the ring of world cities that made its predecessor recognizable and leaves out the stopwatch function, at $1,500 less than Gallet’s Flying Officer Chronograph. Kern acknowledged the Breitling walkouts in a March 2025 interview with Hodinkee, and the revived name now lets his group pursue those customers using factories and boutiques it already has. That backing may help sell a less expensive watch, but the lower price also gives a prospective Breitling buyer a reason to spend less.

According to Alexandre Rodrigues, Gallet’s head of product, a chronograph was the natural starting point for a watch that had combined a city ring with the ability to measure elapsed time. “But we also wanted to consider someone discovering Gallet today,” he tells Observer. Breitling announced the acquisition in March 2025 and relaunched Gallet on Sept. 3, 2026, for the bicentennial of a company founded in the Swiss watchmaking city of La Chaux-de-Fonds. Kern now heads House of Brands, which encompasses Breitling and Gallet alongside Universal Genève. He says he began looking beyond Breitling about four years ago, convinced its teams and manufacturing capabilities could support more business. “Rather than acquiring operating brands with stock and complicated structures, we started looking at dormant historic names with real substance,” Kern tells Observer.

A green watch with an orange face sits on a wood table outdoors during the golden hour; there's an airplane in the background — The Gallet Flying Officer Automatic 40. Courtesy Gallet

Buying a dormant name let Kern choose what to bring back without taking on the unwanted factories and inventory he had encountered while considering operating companies. Asked why Gallet was worth reviving, he points to the Clamshell, a water-resistant chronograph the company dates to 1938. “Behind the distinctive designs, there was real technical ingenuity and a clear understanding of what people needed from their watches,” he says. The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum holds a Gallet stopwatch used by the Wright brothers to time their flights on Dec. 17, 1903, including their 12-second first flight. A later instrument, the Flying Officer, arrived in 1939 with a city ring that let pilots track the time at refueling stops, Rodrigues says. Today’s version updates those destinations to a mix of international gateways and remote locations, with both models measuring 40 millimeters across. The automatic has a slimmer profile, and the quick-release straps can be changed without tools.

An antique silver pocketwatch with a white face and skinny seconds markers and skinny black hands — The Gallet stopwatch Wilbur and Orville Wright used to time the first powered airplane flights at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903. Photo: Eric Long, courtesy the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

Today, the historical name comes with Breitling behind it. Gallet advertises its watches as “Manufactured by Breitling,” drawing on the established brand’s production infrastructure and after-sales network. Dedicated Gallet corners in select Breitling boutiques put the watches in front of people who may never have sought them out, while giving an unfamiliar name an immediate practical advantage: somewhere to try it on and somewhere to take it for repairs. The mechanisms powering the watches vary with the price. The Flying Officer Automatic and core chronographs use movements based on designs from Swiss supplier Sellita, with the Flying Officer Chronograph and the Multichron Pilot and Sport starting at $4,400 on straps, according to U.S. prices confirmed by Breitling’s communications team. At $6,700, the Classics use Breitling’s own hand-wound B09 movement and appeal more directly to buyers who know the old Gallet designs.

A vintage watch with a brown leather strap — The Gallet Clamshell Multichron 30, introduced in 1939, is the world’s first water-resistant wrist chronograph. Courtesy Gallet

The Tribute to Yachting Big Eye, for instance, retains an enlarged regatta counter devised to help sailors time the minutes before a race, now in a 38-millimeter steel model with approximately 70 hours of power reserve. Rodrigues credits the internal heritage team and Gallet collectors with helping shape the Classics, with attention to how the dial and bezel fit the case and how the watch sits on the wrist. “The relationship between the dial, bezel and case, together with the shape of the lugs, matters just as much as diameter alone,” he says. For Yoni Ben-Yehuda, head of watches at the luxury watch and jewelry retailer Material Good, a revival’s credibility begins partly with its team’s past design choices. He has not spent time with the new Gallet watches and declined to offer a product verdict, but his broader test applies to any returning name. “You want to see if they’re true to the original design cues of the brand or if they’re just taking the name.”

He points to Daniel Roth, which Material Good carries as an authorized retailer. Named for its founding watchmaker, the brand was revived by the luxury group LVMH in 2023 with support from La Fabrique du Temps, Louis Vuitton’s watch factory near Geneva. Its distinctive case shape, combining a square and a circle, returned with a new movement, the sort of evolution Ben-Yehuda believes fidelity to the original should allow. “I think the greatest question you can ask yourself is, if the people who made this brand impactful, when it was impactful, were here, what would they be doing?”

Kern is giving the two names he has revived different jobs within the group, describing Gallet as a closely connected sibling to Breitling. “Universal Genève operates as a distinct Maison at the top end of the portfolio, with a more creative and artistic approach,” he says. The new blue-dial Polerouter Date revisits watch designer Gérald Genta’s 1954 model with Universal Genève’s own UG-110 movement. The 39-millimeter steel version on a bracelet is listed at $18,400 before taxes, a specific model’s price rather than the brand’s starting point.

Angled blue-dial and bracelet product view against a dark background. — The Universal Genève Polerouter Date Blue Reference: UGPO002. Courtesy Universal Genève

In September, Universal Genève opened its own boutique on Geneva’s rue du Rhône. Gallet’s place inside selected Breitling stores makes the difference visible: it borrows its sibling’s credibility to compete at a lower price, while Universal Genève asks buyers to pay more for a separate watchmaking identity. Swiss watch exports fell 1.7 percent in value in 2025, their second consecutive annual decline. Over the first eight months of 2026, they rose 1.7 percent compared with the same period a year earlier, according to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry. Those totals measure exports rather than purchases by customers, so they cannot establish demand for Gallet.

Inside Kern’s group, the harder distinction is between Gallet and Breitling. The B09 in the $6,700 Yachting Big Eye also powers Breitling’s Premier B09 Chronograph 40, whose pistachio-dial steel version lists for $9,950 before sales tax. The Premier’s larger case and alligator strap differentiate it, as does the independent chronometer certification Breitling specifies for its movement’s timekeeping. For watch collectors drawn to the hand-wound mechanism, however, the Gallet offers access to it for $3,250 less. A Gallet sale ostensibly adds business if the buyer would otherwise have walked out, but replaces a more expensive purchase if that buyer would have chosen a Breitling. Keeping both names worth their asking prices is Kern’s next complication.