Andrew McUtchen
Often, when you’re considering buying a watch you’ll think to yourself, “I wonder who else wears this piece?” We can all see that David Beckham and John Travolta wear a Breitling in the ads, but what about IRL?The watch I’m most often stumped by, personally speaking, is the Breitling Emergency.The Breitling Emergency II, released at Basel 2013. More beastly than ever. RRP $19,060 AUDWhile its brute size is just plain boss and its functionality reassuring (though in the urban wilds the only emergency I commonly face is –?Help, stop. Hungover, stop. Dying, stop. Send Grill’d chips, stop.) it’s the furthest thing from practical for a daily wear. Especially if you don’t have several acres of space under your buttoned?cuff. I have a fond memory of Basel 2013. I was trying on the Emergency II in front of Breitling VP Jean-Paul Giardin and trying to get a wrist shot with my cuff covering it just so. JP watched on in amusement as I persisted.After a couple of minutes, he stepped closer and said, “I think we’d better just undo the cuff.” Bye bye cuff. It only made me more curious.Who the hell actually wears one of these brilliant, maximalist machines on a day-to-day basis? Apart from helicopter pilots and safety-conscious gangsters that is.The Breitling Emergency II. RRP $19,060 AUDWell, the good news today is that we have unequivocally found the guy. And if the question of how you’d actually pull one off as a daily beater was holding you back from a purchase, get ready to be schooled, and get your bank manager on the phone. ?This guy may be the most inspiring real-life Breitling wearer we’ve ever seen and this little video will make your day, and – judging by the moist eyes around the T+T office – make you cry as well. Christian the Lion, there’s a new reunion video in town, sob.The most inspiring Breitling Emergency wearer on the planet? Conservationist Damian Aspinall reconnecting with Kwibi the gorilla he raised. #tearsThe story is that our Emergency wearer,?Damian Aspinall is a conservationist who raised Kwibi the gorilla for the first five years of his life. In many stories this rearing relationship is described more like Damian ‘being a father to Kwibi’ than simply feeding and housing him in an enclosure. At five-years-old, Aspinall released Kwibi into the wild. Five years later there were reports that Kwibi was attacking humans and Aspinall made the decision to seek him out and reconnect. Watch the video for what happens next. Look out for the watch from 1:50…
29.07.14