SpotlightLeisure With Travel: Take A Trip With The New Baume & Mercier Riviera GMT

The Riviera has long delivered on its promises. A casual sport-lifestyle watch suited for everyday wear, with a spirit that embodies the champagne-sipping, yacht-travelling visions you get when you think of the French Riviera. Now in its 50th year and fifth generation, the collection acknowledges one of the most important aspects of a luxurious lifestyle: travel. According to the maison, ‘the Riviera never ceases to reinvent itself. It loves travel. It loves life’. In this spirit, they have unveiled two new spectacular Rivieras with blue and silvery dials, respectively. Let’s take a closer look at what’s new, and how these Riviera GMT timepieces fit right into the collection’s template.

The Riviera GMT In Line With The Ever-Evolving Collection

The already-tested design of the Baume & Mercier Riviera had recently undergone a revamp in 2021, with the original design remaining ever-so obvious, but with a clear desire to adapt to modern times. The revamp brought to the fore newer sizes, different dial colours, and quartz and mechanical movements—all of which signalled an attempt to get with the times. Seeing how GMT watches have been on the rise across all price ranges in recent years—a trend definitely fuelled by the pandemic—Baume & Mercier rightfully decided to incorporate the complication into their newest iteration of the Riviera.

Born in an era when integrated steel sport watches were all the rage, the Riviera always had a bit of a distinctive look going for itself. With a dodecagonal bezel and an uncluttered dial, the collection quickly became a lifestyle icon. The Riviera GMT is the latest edition of the line. With a blue dial paired with a blue rubber strap, or a silver-hued dial paired with an integrated three-link bracelet in brushed and polished steel, the new Riviera GMT breathes new life into the collection while offering a handy complication.

In the new Riviera GMT, the first thing that catches the eye is the familiar wave pattern-clad dial, which, upon closer inspection, features an alternating pattern of boomerangs that capture the essence of waves. With an antiglare coating on both sides of the sapphire crystal, the view of the dial is always clear, even in harsh light. However, it’s with the light that the wave pattern on the dial really comes to life in an immaculate display.

Each Riviera GMT features the same intrinsic values you come to expect from any Riviera: a 42mm steel case—10.96mm in thickness—a 12-sided bezel with four screws, and a classy, yet casual dial. Don’t fix what ain’t broken, right? Nonetheless, there’s plenty of freshness to adore about the newly launched watches.

The Riviera GMT Offers A Fresh Take On A Classic

Now, let’s get to what sets these timepieces apart from their predecessors: the neatly introduced GMT function. The semi-skeletonised red GMT hand, with the same shape as the other hands, features a luminous tip and travels around the dial once every 24 hours.

With a strongly contrasting colour, the red GMT hand offers perfect legibility on both the blue and silver Riviera GMT dials. Noteworthy here is the fact that the 24-hour display is integrated into the main hour registers, with the 24-hour markers at intervals between the indices. The dial also features half-hour markers between them, which makes it particularly practical for those tricky time zones—including Indian Standard Time—that make you count the additional 30-minute time difference in your head.

The two new versions also differ in terms of firepower. While the mechanical Rivieras usually incorporate the Baumatic movement, the two new Riviera GMT timepieces feature the Swiss-made ETA 2893 movement. Reliable, decorated with several aesthetic features including Geneva stripes, and beating at 4Hz (28,800vph), there’s nothing wrong with this addition. However, the only drawback for some might be the reduced power reserve. While the Baumatic offers a massive five-day power reserve, this calibre promises a standard 42 hours. To us, that just sounds like another reason to wear the Riviera how it was intended to be worn: every day.

With 100m of water resistance, a handy date display at three, and the ability to change straps on the timepiece thanks to the brand’s ‘fast strap’ interchangeability, as added bonuses, there’s a lot that these Riviera GMT timepieces get right. As Baume & Mericer say: ‘these two new timepieces embody the brand’s vision of modern watchmaking while fulfilling the expectations of the most exacting globetrotters’.