Early American historian and Harvard professor Laurel Thatcher Ulrich titled her 2008 book ‘Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History.’ Ulrich would probably be very interested to know about three famous Swiss and French brands whose very first wristwatches were made for – and in a way by – women. These watches by Breguet, Hermès, and Patek Philippe have made history.
In 1783, just as the queen of France, Marie Antoinette, was sitting for a portrait, an officer of the queen’s guard visited Abraham-Louis Breguet’s workshop: Queen Marie Antoinette desired a pocket watch containing all known horological complications at the time. It took 44 years to complete and is perhaps the most famous watch in history, as much for its intriguing story as its ingenious mechanics.
London is one of the world’s metropolises that can very easily stand its ground against the others by doing what it does best: being profoundly British. There are plenty of sensational timepieces in London if you know where to look, and in this article Martin Green shares a few of his favorite places.
Even when you are really good at your craft and universally recognized, you might unwittingly find yourself in the middle of a battle. This is what happened to Abraham-Louis Breguet in the early nineteenth century as the Napoleonic Wars were being waged throughout Europe. For many years these conflicts offered both opportunities and challenges to Breguet. Martin Green explains why.
The Breguet Tradition collection, as exemplified here by the Tradition Automatique Seconde Rétrograde 7097, does just what it says on the label: provide tradition. And it does that very well as Ian Skellern illustrates in a comparison with an original 200-year-old Abraham-Louis Breguet Souscription pocket watch.
The Naked Watchmaker (TNW), aka Peter Speake-Marin, has recently began a series of deconstructions of a broad selection of modern Breguet watches and movements, starting with the Classique 5177, a relatively simple (for Breguet) three-hand dress watch with date. Here Ian shares a few details that The Naked Watchmaker didn’t reveal.
In 1815, King Louis XVIII appointed a new ‘Horloger de la Marine’: Abraham-Louis Breguet. Martin Green thinks it was somewhat ironic that until then Breguet had never really made marine chronometers. That soon changed.
Joshua Munchow has a soft spot for alarm watches; they provide something so fundamentally necessary in a timepiece that he might call them the most useful and underrated complication in horology. And a recent entry to the miniscule field of alarm watches was shown at Baselworld 2018: the Breguet Marine Alarme Musicale 5547 stood out for him as a winner of the fair, with very little competition in its category.
Breguet has updated its Marine collection with three new models offering a wide range of styles and case materials to suit all tastes. Martin Green explains why he thinks this is a winning strategy.
When the Breguet announcement that the Classique Tourbillon Extra-Plat Automatique 5367 is now also available with a high-fire enamel dial (previously, it was available with a guilloche dial) popped into my email box, I had to smile: as an avid enthusiast of ultra-thin watches, Breguet’s classic ultra-thin tourbillon ranks among my favorites. But what makes this one so special?