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?
Watch straps have come a long way since the era of Caroline Murat (née Bonaparte), who is said to have commissioned the world’s first wristwatch from the talented and accomplished Abraham-Louis Breguet when uniting a bracelet with a timepiece was an unprecedented pairing. But most probably don’t break as many fashion boundaries as these three examples by Bulgari, Hublot, and Breguet.
The classic dress watch gives you the same feeling that a good pair of perfectly fitting jeans or comfortable pullover does. For some of us, it might almost provide a sense of home. But most of all, it looks good in any situation. Here are Sabine Zwettler’s five favorite examples from 2017.
While Louis Charles Breguet (1880-1955), great-great-grandson of Abraham-Louis Breguet, was best known as an aviation pioneer, he also developed and manufactured the Breguet A2 electric car.
While “normal” classic watches feature the hours, minutes, and perhaps even seconds in the center of the dial, some timepieces step out of line with off-center indications. Check out these five modern classics introduced in 2017 with interesting off-center configurations.
At Baselworld 2017 Breguet presented the Marine Équation Marchante Reference 5887, a fantastic implementation of a running equation of time combined with a perpetual calendar and the company’s signature tourbillon, making for a very impressive mechanical specialty watch.
If you’ve attended Baselworld over the last few years, you’ve likely heard tell of an “Eric Singer sighting” – catching a quick glimpse of the watch-crazy rock drummer who plays with Kiss as he hurries from booth to booth checking out the new watch offerings. I had a chance to catch up with the horophile musician after Baselworld 2017 to get his personal list of the top ten watches he saw at the fair.
The year 2017 wasn’t just good for both interesting and exciting new wristwatches at Baselworld: I’d go so far to rate it as a vintage year. This article started as a pure Top 5 rundown, but the sheer number of superb watches soon had us reaching for our “Special Mention” over spill. And that’s all without the really big surprises. So without further ado, welcome to our team’s top picks of Baselworld 2017.
