Abraham-Louis Breguet founded his namesake brand in 1775, and 250 years later, he remains one of the most important figures in horology. His contributions have garnered him titles like the “Leonardo da Vinci of Watchmaking” and the “Father of Modern Horology.” Breguet is responsible for inventions still vital in the field today—the wristwatch (1810), tourbillon (1801), anti-shock system (1790), and automatic movement (1780) all exist thanks to the genius of Breguet.
The prosperity of the Breguet brand has long outlived its founder, upheld by successive generations of family leadership. Today, Emmanuel Breguet, who represents the seventh generation, serves as Vice President and Head of Patrimony, Gregory Kissling as the new CEO, and Marc Hayek as the President of Breguet and Chairman of the Swatch Group, which acquired Breguet in 1999.
“For me, the legacy of Breguet isn’t just about Abraham-Louis Breguet, his son, or anyone in our family, including me,” explains Breguet. “It’s not about the Swatch Group, which has owned Breguet for over 25 years—Breguet’s legacy is about a long chain of people who have made up the brand for 250 years. This brand has seen revolutions, wars, so many things, and here we are uninterrupted for two and a half centuries—it’s extraordinary.”
To commemorate this legacy, Breguet has rolled out a year-long 250th anniversary celebration, including the debut of an astounding number of new releases. These timepieces reflect a vast breadth of watchmaking, from the mechanics of in-house calibers designed from scratch to elaborate complications and an array of materials and métiers d’art techniques. They have been years in the making in anticipation of the brand’s 250th birthday, and they’re an extension of the brand’s legacy—past, present, and future. Here, we delve into the initial five models in detail and wrap up with a taste of how this monumental year is closing out.
The Classique Souscription
The celebration kicked off with a model whose origins date back to pocket watches created by Abraham-Louis Breguet in the 18th century. Their design was notable for their oversized cases, enamel dials, and a distinct single central hand used to depict the time.
With his Souscription pocket watches, Breguet also introduced a novel concept for the era with one of the first-ever watch advertisements. The ad presented the opportunity to pre-order the model with a 25% deposit, and these deposits provided Breguet with the investment needed to serialize production, as opposed to the one-by-one bespoke construction that was common for the era. This was a revolutionary business model at the time.
“Our history, all the work of Abraham-Louis Breguet, is always a source of inspiration, but it’s just that—inspiration, not a copy,” Breguet says. “To me, a copy is not interesting—we often have collectors who see a piece in our archives and ask if we can replicate it, and the answer is always no,” he continues. “We have a strong design language that’s timeless, but we must continue to innovate.”
The 250th Anniversary Classique Souscription reimagines this design in the form of a wristwatch and introduces a new proprietary alloy: Breguet gold, combining gold, silver, copper, and palladium. This model went on to win the most prestigious award at the Oscars of watchmaking, the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG). The “Aiguille d’Or” Grand Prix or “Best in Show” rewards the timepiece that is considered best overall across all categories and deemed the most representative of the watch industry as a whole.
The Tradition 7035 Seconde Rétrograde
Breguet gold and enamel continue to take center stage in the next anniversary release: the Tradition 7035 Seconde Rétrograde. In line with the Tradition collection, the focal point of the model is the movement, thanks to the open-dial architecture. Here, the standard hours and minutes are displayed in the small subdial at 12 o’clock, rendered in blue grand feu enamel over a guilloché Quai de l’Horloge motif as a nod to Breguet’s historic workshop on the Île de la Cité in Paris. For this anniversary piece, the Maison’s mechanical and artistic prowess is epitomized through the automatic Caliber 505SR and the palette of gold and blue, which marks the next evolution of the brand’s signature color codes.
The Breguet Type XX Chronograph 2075
Breguet couldn’t mark an anniversary year without the icon of its catalog: the Type XX. The design draws inspiration from two key sources: Louis Breguet, an aircraft manufacturer and great grandson of the founder, and the aviator duo Dieudonné Costes and Maurice Bellonte, who were the first to fly from Paris to New York in 1930 in a Breguet plane.
“The Type XX Chronograph 2075 is an example of good chemistry between the past and present,” describes Breguet. “The collection started as a tool for pilots, but we no longer need watches for this. We still create a design in the spirit of aviation,” he explains, “but we elevate it into the realm of high watchmaking with finishes, specifically on the movement.”
The 250th anniversary edition of the historic pilot’s watch is enhanced with Breguet gold and the addition of a manually wound caliber for the first time. The new movement is visible through the exhibition caseback and hand-engraved with a depiction of the 1930 flight path and the Breguet 19 aircraft mid-flight.
The Classique Tourbillon Sidéral 7255
Breguet’s tourbillon patent has remained one of the most significant achievements for the brand since it was filed on June 26, 1801, a day that’s celebrated annually as Tourbillon Day. “In 224 years, we’ve crossed four centuries—the last quarter of the 18th, all of the 19th and 20th, and the first quarter of the 21st,” Breguet observes. “This reveals something about the genius of Abraham-Louis Breguet—it’s very rare to have a founder who continues to have such an influence after several centuries.”
For this commemorative model, the Maison ups the ante with its first-ever flying tourbillon powered by the new Caliber 187M1. Unlike the traditional tourbillon, the flying tourbillon’s cage is supported only by its lower bridge, without an upper bar. It’s held solely from below and elevated above everything as the showpiece of the dial. Housed in Breguet gold, the flying tourbillon is set within a blue enamel dial, featuring small copper particles that mimic the look of aventurine quartz.
The Marine Hora Mundi 5555
The anniversary edition of the Marine presents the brand’s unique travel-time system alongside a combination of modern artistic craft techniques that mimic NASA’s “Black Marble,” the space agency’s nighttime satellite imagery of Earth. From a technical perspective, Breguet’s approach to the time zone display works by setting the home time and date using the crown at 3 o’clock, then the second city with the push-button crown at 8 o’clock, with a small indicator at 4 o’clock telling you whether it’s day or night. The dial also highlights two métiers d’art techniques: a guilloche disc decorated with a gradation from sky blue to navy blue overlaid with a second disc hand-painted with phosphorescent enamel, applied with a patented process.
The Final Few: Additional Versions of the Classique and Reine de Naples
After the unveiling of the Marine Hora Mundi 5555, Breguet followed up with a few additional interpretations of its Classique. The two most traditional versions, the Reference 7225 and the Reference 7235, continue to showcase the brand’s new alloy, Breguet gold, highlighted by the métiers d’art craft of hand guilloche on the dials. The Reference 7225 is a technical powerhouse with a high-frequency, manual-wind movement and a regulator-style dial with dual seconds sub-dials. In contrast, the Reference 7235 is an automatic model featuring a more traditional moon-phase complication and a design inspired by a historical Breguet pocket watch.
In addition, Breguet added two highly complicated Classique models. The first is the Classique Répétition Minutes 7365, the brand’s first water-resistant minute repeater. It features a blue grand feu enamel dial and the in-house Caliber 1896 manual-winding movement whose bridges and plates are engraved with a symbolic scene depicting both the Quai de l’Horloge in Paris and the Vallée de Joux. Breguet also issued a Classique pocket watch, the Grande Sonnerie 1905 showcasing an impressive set of complications including a tourbillon, grande/petite sonnerie, and minute repeater. The model is housed in a box made partially of oak from Marie-Antoinette’s favorite oak tree, planted in 1681 at the Palace of Versailles.
Of course, the Maison couldn’t let an anniversary year pass without new additions of its very first wristwatch—the first-ever wristwatch—the Reine de Naples. In 1810, Louis-Abraham Breguet created an oblong shaped repeater for the wrist of one of his esteemed clients, the Queen of Naples. The unique design went on to inspire the namesake collection that has become a staple of the brand’s catalog ever since. The anniversary editions, the Reference 9935 and 8925, offer two unique looks highlighting mother of pearl and aventurine on the dials and diamond settings on the bezels.
The First Chapter in the Brand’s New Exploratory R&D Line
Breguet went out with a bang for the final chapter of its anniversary year, debuting the inaugural edition in its new exploratory R&D line. The Expérimentale 1 offers a contemporary reimagining of the Marine equipped with the very first high-frequency (10 Hz) tourbillon with a magnetic escapement and delivering constant force to the balance. While the first timepiece in this new collection marks the final chapter in Breguet’s 250th anniversary celebrations, it also represents the first chapter of its future.
The Next 250 Years of Breguet
As Emmanuel Breguet so eloquently stated, Breguet’s legacy isn’t just about one entity—it’s bigger than this. I’d go on to say that it’s not just about the history of a brand but watchmaking as a whole. Yes, timekeeping traces back to sundials in ancient Egypt. Clockmaking and the first portable watches predate Breguet’s founding by hundreds of years. However, modern watchmaking as we know it took shape in the late 1700s when Abraham-Louis Breguet established his namesake brand.
“There can be an emphasis that we create watches for the collectors, and of course we consider this,” shares Breguet. “There are collectors who have followed the brand through many generations of their families, and that’s very special to us,” he continues. “But for me, it’s how we’ve served and continue to serve the industry that’s just as important. Propelling the art of watchmaking forward, that’s the legacy of Breguet.”
You can find a shortened version of this story in our Worthy 100 print issue. However, this digital version has been updated with new details in the wake of Breguet’s monumental win at the Oscars of watchmaking and additional new releases as part of the 250th anniversary celebration.
