What could sound like the start of a joke: “George Bamford, Davide Cerrato and the English brothers walk into a room…” was actually the genesis of something quite magical, the Bremont Bamford Aurora.
Let me give you some background here. Nick and Giles English, founders of Bremont watches, are well-known for their sense of adventure, confidence and self-belief. Basically, they never got a copy of the watch business rulebook. The new CEO of Bremont, Davide Cerrato, knows a thing or two about designing watches. His illustrious career in the sector includes, among many other achievements, the re-launch of Tudor in 2012 and creating the hero 1858 Geosphere model for Montblanc. “Conservatism” is definitely not a word in Cerrato’s vocabulary. He actually changed Bremont’s mantra to “Take it further”. As such, when considering a new iteration of their successful Supermarine diving watch, Cerrato naturally went to George Bamford, who had developed the California dialled S500 Supermarine two years ago; a watch that sold out as quickly as ice-cream on a hot summer day. Supermarine, which in the earlier part of the 20th century produced seaplanes, developed at the brink of WWII the Spitfire fighter, a plane that would prove fundamental to the success of the RAF in The Battle of Britain.
George Bamford took Bremont’s mantra “Take it further” to heart and went on a quest to find the Northern Lights, which are the inspiration behind the limited-edition Bremont Bamford Aurora.
No pressure then for Bremont and Bamford Watch Department to create a limited edition watch that would elevate even further the pedigree of a timepiece that paid homage to one of the most glorious moments of British history in the 20th century. Inspired by aviation principles, the Supermarine range was meant to fulfil the requirements of any explorer, including those in search of the hypnotic spectacle of the Aurora Borealis.
As 2024 marks the peak of a solar cycle (approximately 11 years), magnetic changes cause a rise in the amount of activity on the sun’s surface, which translates into more X-rays and electrically charged particles sent towards Earth, causing the geomagnetic storms that produce the spellbinding Northern Lights.
Leave it to Bamford and Cerrato to bring all this magic into a watch. The Aurora, a machine destined to be a 24-hour tool, combines all the functionality and resilience of the Bremont Supermarine S502 with innovative, bold design brush strokes, enhanced by the use of DLC to coat its 43mm stainless-steel Trip-Tick case. The deep black offers a dramatic contrast to the vibrant green super-LumiNova® applied on the bezel and cut-out numerals, a wink to the main hue of the Norhern Lights, produced when electrically charged particles flow out from the sun and collide with oxygen atoms at more than 100 km from the ground.
The Aurora features a dial enhanced with matt black hour and minute hands filled with green Super-LumiNova®, a matt black and gloss green GMT hand filled with green Super-LumiNova® and a gloss green centre second hand.
Inspired by this natural phenomenon, Cerrato and Bamford wanted to give to the Aurora as much luminosity and depth as possible, which was achieved by using a California sandwich dial (interestingly, the original California dials were contemporary to the Supermarine planes), comprising a solid disc of luminous material covered with a plate with index apertures to expose the Super-LumiNova® as characters.
During the day, the Aurora commands a strong sporty presence on the wrist, but it is in the dark that it becomes a head-turner, its luminosity capturing the attention of anyone who lays eyes on it, as a part of the watch that is not fully visible in daylight comes to life.
Adventure and exploration lays within the DNA of Bremont watches, a sentiment that Bamford and Cerrato have faithfully brought to life in the Aurora.
Completed with a strap made from black nubuck leather with green stitching and DLC-coated pin buckle to match, the Aurora is the kind of watch that, paraphrasing Bamford, is destined to “live on your wrist”.
With a price tag of £4,900 and only 500 units to be manufactured, your personal quest should be to secure one before it is too late.
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