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Lately, no matter where I turn, I feel that I’m confronted with small watches, with exotic dials, and, with increasing frequency, set with diamonds or precious stones of some kind. It’s a well established trend at this point across both very high end luxury brands and more accessible fare, so it should never really be a surprise when a watchmaker takes a stab at something small and blingy. What is sometimes interesting to clock, however, is how a brand positions a watch like this, because there are multiple clear strategies and I think it’s interesting to consider what it says about the brand depending on the route they take. Watches in this category, or watches that bump against this category, tend to be watches that can traditionally be marketed toward women exclusively. If they’re relatively small and set with diamonds, they can be seen as inherently feminine, almost across the board. Some brands, however, lean into the current moment that is seeing men and women appreciate watches in this category.
Bell & Ross, who have just released the BR–05 36MM Blue Diamond Eagle Diamond (yes, that’s the actual name of the watch) have taken the former approach. The watch “asserts a femininity that is both timeless and contemporary,” according to their press release. The Blue Diamond Eagle Diamond (let’s go with BDED from here on out, an acronym that will almost certainly never be repeated in these pages) is a new take on the just released (in March) BR-05 36 mm Blue Diamond Eagle, which is the same watch without the diamond set case.
What we have here is a 36mm BR-05 with an aventurine dial set with seven diamonds that evoke the Eagle (Aquila) constellation, which can be seen in the northern hemisphere during the summer months. The constellation has the appearance of an eagle with its wings spread, which in turn is a representation of Zeus’s eagle in Greek mythology. And that, according to Bell & Ross, forms the link between this specific constellation and the brand’s longtime interest in aviation.
That might be a bit of a stretch, if I’m being honest, but here’s the thing: you don’t really need to make a connection to aviation to produce an aventurine dial with diamonds that is decorative just for the sake of it. All watches are aesthetic objects at the end of the day – it can just be a beautiful thing without shoehorning in backstory that never really existed previously (please feel free to shoot me a message if I’ve missed earlier Bell & Ross references playing with symbols rooted in Greek mythology).
Anyway, this watch also includes a bezel that has been set with a total of 108 diamonds, which ought to give it quite a bit of additional flash on the wrist. I suppose it does lean more feminine if we’re considering the watch from a traditional business oriented vantage point, but I think it would be a mistake to dismiss it as purely a ladies piece in the year that Baltic closed out their MR collection with a similar design. The case proportions are also pretty decidedly unisex. A 36mm wide case in a square shape is actually going to wear kind of large. It’s kept thin, though, at 8.7mm thanks to the use of the BR-CAL.329 movement, which is a rebadged Sellita SW300.
The BR-05 36MM BDED has a retail price of $6,600. Bell & Ross
