BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
You know, whenever you see a list of the most iconic wristwatches around, the same candidates always appear, don’t they? You’ve got your Submariner, and your Seamaster, the Santos and Reverso are in there somewhere, and undoubtedly, there’s a Navitimer as well – these are all great watches, by the way. But it’s interesting how these lists tend to regurgitate the same set of watches that’ve been around forever – albeit the lists are sometimes in a different order. What I’m getting at here is that they often don’t include watches which have risen to become modern day icons, watches like Bell & Ross’ BR-03, for example.
Bell & Ross built itself on the strengths of its designs which were highly influenced by aviation. They distinctly modelled their pieces to look like they’d been pulled out of a plane’s cockpit and once were at home next to altimeters, artificial horizons and other gizmos. While the brand has expanded its collection of watches over the years with integrated bracelet sports watches, modern-looking tourbillon watches and watches with skulls on, the appeal of the black square-cased watch just never went away.
That hasn’t stopped Bell & Ross from playing around with the formula, producing some quite unique and whimsical designs. They still make the version of the BR-03 that looks like an artificial horizon, and there’s one that looks like a gyrocompass, too, even one that looks like a multimeter. I do miss the BR-03 variants that look like a red radar display, though, and there’s another one that looked like a pilot’s heads-up display. You get the idea that the brand isn’t fussy when it comes to altering its most iconic design if it creates something fun and new. ‘Fun’ and ‘new’ are just two words I’d use to describe their latest addition to the collection, the BR-03 Astro.
Bell & Ross’ creative director Bruno Belamich, whom I interviewed when their Burlington Arcade boutique in London first opened (hard to believe that was a decade ago this year), said of the new BR-03 Astro that “The Cupola, the observation dome of the International Space Station (ISS), inspired this watch, which acts as a kind of porthole opening onto the planets. I imagined Earth seen from space in symbolic alignment with the Moon and Mars. The magic of this watch lies in its display—not as a technical interpretation of an instrument watch but, for once, in an imaginative dimension,”. It’s a succinct way of describing the new watch, which demands attention by virtue of its unique appearance.
The watch’s appearance is unusual but in a good way. A blue aventurine baseplate forms the starry backdrop for the dial. The pictures I took do it limited justice; it’s a striking dial, but its effervescence only stands out under natural light. We had some sunlight for a bit, which is impressive for the UK in February, and it shone much brighter, but direct sunlight bodes poorly for a camera. I would say to imagine the dial with at least 25% more sparkle than it has in my photos.
Orbiting above the cosmic backdrop are three heavenly bodies which display the time. The seconds are indicated via the satellite that orbits the Earth, which is recessed into the sapphire crystal at the centre of the display. The seconds hand, shaped as a satellite, passes over a laser-engraved metal disk, which depicts the Moon and functions as the minutes hand. The hours are indicated by the red dot that is Mars. Unlike the other two displays, Mars has no apparent physical connection like hands usually have. However, that’s not entirely correct, as to make Mars move around and depict the hours it’s sat atop a sapphire crystal disk, which is invisible to the naked eye but allows the planet to fulfil its orbit. I like the wavey texture of the Mars dot, I have no idea if that’s intentional or a byproduct of manufacture, but it’s nice.
You’ll have now spotted what is the one weakness of the BR-03 Astro, the only chink in its armour. The planetoid hands and lack of indices mean that reading the time is guesswork at best. Before you race to the comments, clutching your sarcastic outburst about how useless that seems, just hold up for a moment. While the BR-03 Astro isn’t going to display the precise time, it isn’t so wildly illegible that guessing the time involves some magic spell. It’s more like any other watch with no indices on the dial (of which there are many); it’ll tell you the rough time, which is enough for most quick glances. That said, reading this one might be a challenge if you don’t have the best eyesight.
The watch’s case measures 41.0mm x 11.5mm and is made of black micro-blasted ceramic. This size, I think, is perfect for most people as it doesn’t wholly dominate your wrist like some of the larger chronograph watches Bell & Ross used to make do. My review model came with the extra wide rubber strap with steel PVD pin buckle, which was superbly comfortable as it was supple and distributed the watch’s mass evenly; a fabric strap with Velcro is also available. Despite my comment about the wide strap distributing the watch’s mass, there isn’t that much mass anyway; it measured in on our VSS (Very Scientific (Kitchen) Scales) at 132 grams on the rubber strap, which makes it slightly lighter than Rolex’s GMT-Master II in steel on the Jubilee bracelet and slightly heavier than the BR-05 Skeleton Arctic Blue watch we reviewed at the end of 2024. With these dimensions, the BR-03 Astro is totally wearable, and 100m of water resistance means that it’s totally wearable, totally just about anywhere.
Inside the watch is the self-winding BR-CAL.327 which is based on the revised Sellita SW300-1 ebauche. The revision for that movement was its extended power reserve, which is roughly 54 hours in this piece. Bell & Ross haven’t told me what the power reserve is for this specific watch, but for the BR-03 Horizon model, it’s around 54 hours, so, given that they share a movement, it’s a sensible guess.
That about sums up the Bell & Ross BR-03 Astro watch. It’s funny, usually when people ask me about the more ‘wild’ brands that take liberties with their designs (Hublot springs to mind), I say to choose the one that both suits you and shows when they’ve gone a bit bonkers with it, that way you get one unique watch from that brand which brings value to your collection and scratches that itch. You know the itch I mean.
But with the BR-03 Astro, it’s not quite the same. This is not a watch that can be an all-in-one collection piece, thanks to the vagueness of the dial and the fact I would undoubtedly drop it at some point and damage that ceramic case. The BR-03 Astro probably wouldn’t be the sole Bell & Ross watch in my collection, either, I like the utilitarian appearances of their less whacky watches.
But, having said all that, I would still have the BR-03 Astro in my collection as something to enjoy casually and maybe spark a conversation with. It’s fun, it’s interesting and it’s very comfortable on the wrist. While doing the unexpected is very much Bell & Ross’ raison d’être, the BR-03 Astro nevertheless stands out as a special watch indeed.
The price for one of these is £4,200 (incl. VAT), €4,990 (incl. VAT) or $4,800 (excl. sales tax), and the watch is limited to 999 examples worldwide.
