Many of the trendsetting and innovative brands we’ve covered throughout this series have been responsible for a number of ?firsts? in the industry ? the first wristwatch, first diver, first modern pilots’ watch, first automatic chronograph, first supercompressor, first watch in outer space, to name a few. Horology is one of those vocations that has accompanied mankind through all our accomplishments and failures, glories and catastrophes. Yet, if a watch brand has been out of production for a while, its earned spot in the history of watchmaking can easily get lost and forgotten in favor of newer and currently available models.

Gallet is one of these brands. The Swiss company was the first to produce a waterproof chronograph, a watch with an rotating bezel, a watch with an additional 24-hour GMT hand, and, significantly, a watch with a 28,000-vph escapement. In the brand?s more than 550 years of clockmaking and watchmaking since 1466, and especially in the past century, it has provided the industry with no shortage of innovations. This year, the brand has brought itself back into the conversation ? riding the waves of both its own rich history and of the vintage-revival trend ? with the release of the ?Heritage Edition? Racing Chronograph. The watch, inspired by the famous MultiChron ?Jim Clark? edition (above, courtesy of FratelloWatches), so named for the legendary Forumla 1 racer who often wore it, is Gallet?s reintroduction of itself into the contemporary ma...