A couple of times a year, we at National Geographic Adventure review watches and included in those watches are luxury models. While I can appreciate their beauty and engineering, my personal style is more Nixon than Rolex, so I’ve found myself admiring but never coveting them. Then a watch showed up from Bell & Ross, and I was smitten. It was simple and basic and it fit nicely on my wrist without being ostentatious or fem. I mean, some luxury models, none of the ones we cover, but some of them, they’re so adorned you’d guess they’re being marketed to the kind of guy who wants to look like the King of Fwance.

Anyway, Bell & Ross is now firmly on my radar and even if I don’t have to coin to buy one, it’s worth noting when they have something new and cool, and the BR 01 Airborne watch is definitely new and most certainly cool. As with so many watches, it’s a “tribute” to badass men, in this case the U.S. paratroopers who dropped over Normandy in World War II’s D-Day (and then died in inordinate numbers). That’s a nice thought and is in keeping with B&R’s aviation vibe, but I like the new watch because skulls are cool. They’ve been the single most popular fashion theme for years—my eight-year-old daughter has sparkly skulls all over her sneakers—and show no signs of fading away. So the Airborne is both retro and completely contemporary, which is not always an easy thing to pull off. (Though I suspect that contemporary wasn’t even part of the design discussion, but who knows.)

The watch has a 46mm case and weighs about five ounces. Black hands on a dark grey face aren’t the easiest to read, of course, but both the skull and hands are photoluminescent, which helps a lot. It’s water-resistant to 100 meters. And it’s a limited edition run of 500, so it’s not cheap, and I will never, ever own one. But I dig it nonetheless.

Bell & Ross BR 01 Airborne costs $5,000. Find it through the Bell & Ross website.