Despite its longtime affiliation with pilots’ watches, Breitling counts its vintage-flavored divers’ watch, the Superocean Heritage, among its most popular modern timepieces. Recently the brand announced the release of a new limited edition in the collection, to be carried exclusively in its two Los Angeles-area boutiques.

The Superocean traces its design to 1957.

The Breitling Superocean Heritage B20 Automatic 44 Black Steel Beverly Hills Limited Edition (a lengthy name for a very limited run; just 50 pieces total) offers an intriguing combination of materials: a 44-mm case made of Black Steel (Breitling’s term for black DLC-coated stainless steel), a unidirectional rotating divers’ bezel made of 18k rose gold, and, framed inside the bezel, a ring made of high-tech black ceramic with exceptional resistance to scratches and shocks. The watch’s 200-meter water resistance is aided by a screw-locked crown with two gaskets, while the bezel, with a luminescent dot at 12 o’clock for orientation, has a 120-tooth system that enables a smooth, ratcheting rotation and precise time settings and measurements.
The DLC-coated Black Steel case is topped by a rose-gold bezel.

The sleek black dial evokes the design elements of early models of the Superocean, which Breitling first introduced to the diving watch enthusiast community in 1957: cone-shaped hour markers, a triangular-tipped hour hand and a lozenge-like minute hand, all treated wit...