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Investments can be unpredictable, but not so with these two winners, which we have handpicked to provide you with sound and secure appreciation — aesthetically, spiritually and financially.
Breitling Superocean Heritage Kelly Slater edition
A six-foot wave can hit any hapless human with a force of 1,700 pounds per square metre — roughly the weight of a polar bear. The breakers thundering into the north shore of Maui, Hawaii, often swell to at least 10 times that size. When they do — with all other variables deferring to averages — the energy they pack is akin to that which a typical thunderstorm releases over the course of a few minutes.
Surfing may seem like a serene activity to us landlubbers gazing from the beach, but it is as hardcore an adventure sport as they come, and as valid an assertion of a watch’s technical credibility as diving, the sport more commonly associated with Breitling since its first Superocean piece in 1957. The manufacture these days uses the more generic phrase ‘sea watches’ to refer to its Superocean Heritage collection, and the standout piece from the line’s first major refresh since 2017 justifies the vocabulary tweak.
First, some observations on the rest. Horophiles — a demographic that will try to make salmon usurp green as the dial hue du jour over the space of a Krug-addled stroll from Halls 2 to Hall 5 at the Palexpo in Geneva — are currently vacillating wildly when it comes to size preferences. This could be why Breitling has chosen to offer sizes, with these new additions, to suit various wrists and tastes: from 36mm, in fact, to 44mm.
Other talking points include Breitling’s first exclusive three- hand manufacture calibre (the B31, newly launched in March) being used in the new automatic models. Another is the ceramic- inlaid bezels, a boost to scratch resistance, in each new piece adhering to a streamlined colour palette of black, blue and green. A third is aesthetics-enhancing evolutionary baby steps such as tone- on-tone sub-dials and a subtle date aperture at six o’clock.
The real game-changer among the new offerings, though, is the Superocean Heritage B31 Automatic 40 Kelly Slater, a limited- edition piece that raises a tumbler of Mai Tai to the surf culture of the Pacific archipelago the eponymous winner of 11 world titles in a three-decade career now calls home. Emblazoned with a quirky foliage pattern, reminiscent of a tropical canopy, the piece’s outer ring is engraved with “One of 500” and “Kelly Slater Limited Edition”.
Powered by that aforementioned B31 movement, and available with either a blue rubber mesh strap or stainless steel mesh bracelet, its special presentation box (emblazoned with the same floral motif as the dial) includes a personal note from Slater himself. “Breitling has been with me for years,” says Slater, whose previous five projects with Breitling include a collaboration with his sustainable clothing brand, Outerknown. “This watch reflects everything I love — the ocean, nature, and the easy-going style I’ve always connected with.”
Leica M11-D centenary edition
Not many companies can claim to have changed the way the human condition is documented for posterity. One German brand, based just outside Wetzlar in the German state of Hesse, can make exactly that assertion — and, indeed, refer to themselves as the “fathers of modern photojournalism”.
This year marks the 100-year point since Leica first unveiled, at the Leipzig Spring Fair, the first ever mass-produced 35mm camera, a stunningly engineered marvel that, unlike its cumbersome forbears — which demanded tripods and complex, time-devouring set-up processes — enabled the bearer to immortalise real life moments with immediacy.
As part of the centenary celebrations, under the overarching motto “100 years of Leica: witness to a century”, the brand has launched a plethora of enviable equipment including the D-Lux 8 compact zoom, the Sofort 2 hybrid instant camera, Trinovid binoculars, and — the pièce de résistance — a beautifully boxed edition of the Leica M11-D.
The unit has much in common with the standard M11: notably, internal organs such as the 60-megapixel full-frame CMOS image sensor and Maestro III processor. Added, though, are some nods and winks to the earliest production models from a century ago: its brass top and bottom plates with a black-gloss paint finish that will patina with use, for example, as well as the textured leather covering and the distinctive cross knurling on the nickel-coloured, anodised aluminium from which the shutter release, power switch and shutter speed dial are made. The eyelets for the carrying strap and the trademark red Leica logo have also been omitted in deference to the camera’s earliest progenitors, one of which will be displayed next to Leica’s 1,000,000th camera release (one of the celebratory batch) at the Leica Welt, the company’s showcasing facility in Wetzlar.
Available in select Leica stores from spring 2026, along with the other new hardware mentioned here (plus a photobook commemorating 100 years of Leica), the Leica M11-D centenary edition comes with a glossy wooden box for storage, an SD card case, and a leather carrying case.
That’s just the tangible stuff, though: there’s also the words all Leica users should carry with them when capturing one of life’s more edifying moments for posterity — those of humanist photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson: “Shooting with a Leica,” he once said, “is like a long tender kiss, like firing an automatic pistol, like an hour on the analyst’s couch.”
