In a campaign that channels grit and gears, Austin Butler fronts Breitling’s new Top Time B31, embodying the brand’s most rebellious spirit to date. Shot in the sun-soaked stillness of a desert film set, the images fuse the freedom of open roads with the introspection of an actor between takes.
Austin Butler for Breitling
Butler, fresh off a career high with “Dune: Part Two,” “The Bikeriders,” and “Masters of the Air,” becomes the living expression of “Top Time for the free spirited.” It’s a pairing ticking with quiet precision and unshakable presence.
The Top Time B31 is Breitling’s first three-hand model with an in-house manufacture movement, and its reintroduction draws on the same 1960s counterculture energy that once gave rise to the original. With its tan leather strap and clean dial, the watch looks as comfortable wrapped around a denim cuff as it does gripping a motorcycle throttle.
The Breitling campaign evokes flashes of Butler’s portrayal in “The Bikeriders”—gritty, cinematic, and draped in Americana. “Top Time was never just about keeping time but expanding it,” Breitling states, and Butler’s own narrative mirrors that sentiment—crafting characters “from the inside out” and chasing the quiet moments in between.
“There’s freedom when the mind can focus on what it wants and where it needs to go,” Butler says. “It’s when I feel most free.”
Despite being one of Hollywood’s most in-demand names, Butler still refers to himself as “kind of an introvert,” choosing to let his work—and now his watch—do the talking. Whether leaning against his director’s chair or mounting a Triumph bike in beat-up denim and a leather jacket, he exudes a James Dean-era magnetism with a 21st-century cool.
The raw masculinity of this campaign is a sharp contrast to his recent Saint Laurent shoot, where retro-inspired tailoring replaced rugged denim, but the same charisma held steady. “A lot of my dreams have just kind of come true lately,” he says, and Breitling captures that very moment—when time, talent, and taste converge.
