The Marine Équation Marchante 5887 by Breguet is an unusual timepiece in many ways. Its appearance is part that of a sophisticated complication watch, part classic Breguet, and part sports watch. It is 43.9 mm in diameter, about 11.5 mm thick, in platinum or rose gold, and it has a water resistance of 100 metres,…
If there were a competition for the best gentleman’s watch, Breguet would enter the Classique 7147. The brand staged the launch of its “Classic Tour” in London on 4 October 2017, “honouring the art of living of a true gentleman” by presenting craftspeople who emulated “the day of a perfect gentleman who, after slipping his…
The story of Breguet n° 3624 is a nice fit for today’s burgeoning use of “gentleman” as a marketing term. The Marquis Malaspina went to Paris in 1881 and took the opportunity to visit Breguet’s store, at that time at 12 Rue de la Paix. He went to Breguet because their watches were simply the…
Watch brands are now presenting previews of their new products for 2017, which will be fully presented during the two upcoming shows, SIHH in Geneva in January, and Baselworld in March. Breguet’s preview is dedicated to women, a new version of the Tradition Dame, at a very feminine size of 37 mm but with a…
Breguet inaugurated an exhibition titled “Marie-Antoinette, a Queen in Versailles” at the Mori Arts Center Gallery in Tokyo. The event runs from 25 October 2016 to 25 February 2017 and it is sponsored by Breguet. On 2 November 2016 (Marie Antoinette’s birthday) and the day after, the Breguet pocket watch number 1160 – reproduction of…
Warning: this is not the usual blog post. It’s quite long. It’s a fictionalized version of a true story. I wrote it to try to understand the greatest mystery of this crime: why did he do it? Contents 1. Dealing the cards – 5 January 1783 Abraham-Louis Breguet and Count von Fersen 2. A bold opening…
Breguet began making pilot’s chronographs in 1955, with the Type XX commissioned by the French air force and naval air arm. This was followed by the Types XXI and XXII, and they have been in production ever since. This year, Breguet presents the new Type XXI 3817 chronograph, an evocative piece with a vintage-look dial…
The Breguet Tradition Indépendant Chronograph was undoubtedly one of the highlights of Baselworld 2015, an innovative piece in which the chronograph function is kept completely separate from the time functions by means of two movements, each with its own balance wheel, and separate power sources. The time functions are powered by a conventional mainspring barrel…
Company profile: The history of watchmaking includes many brilliant inventors, but no-one contributed more to the craft than Abraham-Louis Breguet. Some of his innovations are routinely referred to using his name – the Breguet overcoil, Breguet hands – and others, such as the tourbillon, shock protection, and the gong in repeater watches, are a fundamental…
2015 is an important year for Breguet, and one of the anniversary pieces is the Marine Chronographe celebrating the 200th anniversary of Abraham-Louis Breguet’s appointment as chronometer-supplier to the French Royal Navy by King Louis XVIII. This watch is a limited edition of 200 pieces, with platinum case. Case and dial The platinum case…
Stunning. Absolutely stunning, This version of the Breguet Type XXI chronograph, a model dating back to the 1950s and designed for the French Naval air force, is in platinum, and just one piece will be made, to be auctioned on 7 November 2015 in Geneva as part of the Only Watch charity event benefiting research…
This year at Baselworld, Breguet presented an exceptional series of pieces, with four innovative men’s watches and some fine women’s jewellery pieces. The men’s watches comprised the preview piece, the Tradition Automatique Seconde Rétrograde 7097 and the piece reviewed here, the Breguet Tradition Chronographe Indépendant 7077. The 7077 chronograph does a lot of things differently with…
Brilliance doesn’t necessarily need grand complications, lots of subdials and pushers. Sometimes it appears through perfect simplicity, as in the Breguet Classique 5140BA/29/9W6, in 18-carat yellow gold. The dial in oven-fired enamel has hand-painted Arabic numerals, and an off-centred subdial for small seconds. The case is 40 mm in diameter, 10.8 mm thick, with a…
2015 is an important anniversary year – 240 years from the foundation of the company in Paris, 1775 – and so there will be some important pieces shown at Baselworld in March 2015. They have given us a quick look at one watch, the Breguet Tradition Automatique Seconde Rétrograde 7097, which makes timekeeping a spectacular,…
This post follows yesterday’s piece on hundredth-second watches: I remembered that in 2012 Breguet presented its Classique Chronométrie 7727 which is visually unusual because it has a very small subdial with a silicon hand that rotates once a second, and so in theory could display fractions of a second, at least tenths or twentieths. In…
Founded in 1775 by Abraham-Louis Breguet, the company will reach its 240th anniversary next year. Perhaps this is why this year, 2014, there were not many new products by the brand at Baselworld. They’re saving the fireworks for 2015. I’ve always found it hard to imagine how a watch company can prepare for an anniversary,…