Since Austin Butler started working with Breitling in March, he hasn’t just been a face for the legendary maker of pilot’s watches, he’s signaled a hard turn for the company. The actor was announced as Breitling’s new face along with the new Top Time B31 watch, one of the brand’s smallest offerings for men at just 38 mm. This is a particularly big deal for a brand like Breitling, which is famous for its beastly pilot watches, like the 43-mm Navitimer—one of the original BIG-ASS WATCHES. And while the Top Time B31 was already a dramatic new look for Breitling, Butler hasn’t put away his shrink ray. This week, the actor rocked one of the tiniest watches Breitling makes.
Lyvans Boolaky
Butler showed up to the premiere of his new film Caught Stealing wearing Breitling’s 32-mm Chronomat. It’s another excellent and adventurous choice for the actor. Because while we respect the Swiss brand’s legacy in purpose-built tool watches—and while we love the Navitimer, despite the fact that calculating fuel consumption while piloting a Cessna is well beyond our humble abilities—there’s something to be said for a brand branching out into new territory. And while the Chronomat collection is far from new, these smaller, blingier executions open up the playing field to an entirely new audience. The brand is officially in its Austin Butler era.
The Chronomat began its life as a pilot’s chronograph in the early 1940s and featured a unique circular slide-rule bezel. The 1990s and 2000s-era versions, however, introduced the “rider tab” bezel and the Rouleaux bezel, which have now proliferated across the modern lineup of chronographs, travel watches, time-only models, special editions, and more. Merging characteristics of commonplace sports watches with the pizazz of “luxury sports watches” with fancy bracelets, the Chronomat is a versatile platform that looks the part in myriad sizes and configurations. It looks just as good at 44 mm as it does at 32 mm.
Maybe five years ago, an actor like Butler wouldn’t have even considered these types of downzied watches.. Nowadays, Butler is far from the first male actor, musician, or celebrity to embrace wearing not only smaller watches, but even dedicated ladies’ models. Of course, many forget that up until the late ‘90s and early ‘2000s, much smaller case sizes were the norm in men’s timepieces.
Butler’s Chronomat 32 mm with its off-white dial, thermocompensated quartz movement, and “Rouleaux” bracelet with a butterfly clasp, is quite simply a good-looking, highly accurate watch. Looking at it on his wrist in Paris, it also looks well sized for his frame, not unlike a classic model on the arm of Cary Grant or Clark Gable. In other words, Butler’s in good sartorial and cinematic company.
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Novak Djokovic’s Hublot Big Bang 20th Anniversary All Black
The Djoker went full monochromatic for an appearance at the ASICS House of Tennis event this week in New York, pairing a black Lacoste polo to the Hublot Big Bang 20th Anniversary All Black. Designed for—you guessed it—the 20th anniversary of the Swiss brand’s flagship collection, this Big Bang is 43 mm of high-tech black ceramic, with an automatic Unico movement beating away inside, a microblasted and polished black ceramic bezel, a stamped satin-finish “carbon effect” dial with a dual-register chronograph, and a matching black structured rubber strap. Limited to 500 pieces, it’s one of the subtler takes on the Big Bang aesthetic that we’ve seen in the last few years.
Valerie Terranova
John Mayer’s Audemars Piguet Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon Extra-Thin RD#3 “50th Anniversary”
Attending the Broadway opening of comedian Jeff Ross’s “Take a Banana For The Ride” at the Nederlander Theatre this week, John Mayer rocked the Audemars Piguet Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon Extra-Thin RD#3 “50th Anniversary.” This watch is a stunner. The Gerald Genta-designed Royal Oak luxury sports watch in stainless steel measures just 8.1mm in height and is equipped with a flying tourbillon powered by an automatic movement, making it the first Extra-Thin model to feature such a complication. A mix of classic ‘70s styling and modern movement tech, it’s a wildly cool take on the RO.
Shirlaine Forrest/Getty Images
Shirlaine Forrest/Getty Images
Mohamed Salah’s Richard Mille RM74-02
Attending the PFA Awards 2025 at the Manchester Opera House in England, Egyptian footballer Mohamed Salah wore the Richard Mille RM74-02, an automatic tourbillon watch with wild looks and quite the price tag to boot. Cased in the brand’s proprietary Gold-Quartz TPT (a material formed from plies of quartz fiber suffused with leaves of 22K 5N pink gold), it features a skeletonized baseplate and bridges made from 18K 5N red gold and 18K 3N yellow gold, a free-sprung balance that provides increased shock resistance, a variable-geometry rotor that can be customized to the wearer’s activity level, and a roughly $600,000 price tag that will convince anyone you are unquestionably the best soccer player in Premier League.
Bob Odenkirk’s Panerai Radiomir Quaranta
While asking fans’ questions for GQ, Bob Odenkirk rocked the Panerai Radiomir Quaranta, a smaller, 40 mm version (hence the name) of the brand’s cushion-cased, onion crown-equipped, wire-lugged watch based upon vintage models made for the Italian Royal Navy. While perhaps not quite as well known as the Luminor with its iconic crown protection device, the Radiomir’s history extends well into the early era of naval special operations during the Second World War. Odenkirk’s ref. PAM01294 has a fancy leather strap, meaning that once you remove your closed-circuit regulator, you can wear it to the office!
