Burberry Britain Watch Range Flagship BBY1000 Gunmetal.

Fashion watches have been getting serious for some time now, with Dior's range muscling it''s way into the limelight, alongside Ralph Lauren's new Jaeger Le-Coultre powered pieces rolling out last year, Ermengildo Zenga using Girard Perregaux, Hermes producing some serious manufacture level items, and Cartier being respected for its Prive collection as never before, even brands as derided as Dunhill now use Jaeger Le Coultre Movements.  It seems with all this development Christopher Bailey at Burberry decided the the Burberry watches, long relegated to the "fashion" section of watch boutiques alongside Emporio Armani watches need to be taken a little more seriously, with this in mind, he has launched the "Britain" collection of wristwatches, of which this, the BBY1000 is the flagship piece.

Getting straight down to brass tacks, the movement in this is a Soprod 9040 movement, Soprod for those not in the know, are a brand slightly a level above ETA in terms of their movements, they modify some ETA movements, and produce some of their own, not immensly respected, by acceptable, the movement has a 40 hour power reserve, power reserve indicator, date window, exhibition back, and comes in a matte black 47mm ionised gunmetal stainless steel finish, the hands have trench coloured Super-LumiNova to match the trench coloured aligator strap, and it costs £2775.

Before we give our opinion, one interesting thing about this watch range is the other three pieces not shown here, yes, the BBY1000 is the flagship, but what else do they have?  Well, there is the BBY1200, BBY 1201, BBY 1202, and BBY1203, stainless steel on alligator, or stainless steel on a stainless stell bracelet with black or white faces, each costing only £1275 each, why so inexpensive?  Burberry have in their infinite wisdom decided to use inferior ETA 2824 movements with no power reserve, an odd move since they are attempting to raise their profile.  There is also a Chronograph with a Ronda 5040.D movement, and a whole Women's range with Ronda quartz movements and diamond studded cases, but I think you get the idea by know anyway.

This new range by Burberry is a fail in our opinion, their attempt was to raise their profile, but barring the star studded launch party, they have not succeeded, all they have produced is a sadly lacklustre range of watches, which just mean that the "fashion" watch section will be crowded with some higher price options.  Next time maybe they could try using quality movements, and keeping consistency across the ranges.

You could disagree with this opinion of course, in which case the Burberry Britain watch range is available to buy now, online or in Burberry Boutiques.