Breguet has skeletonized one of its impressively thin tourbillon movements, Caliber 581, to create an airy, mesmerizing Classique Tourbillon Extra-Flat Skeleton 5395, one of several highlights among Breguet’s just-debuted full 2019 collection.
As premiered to the press last week during the Swatch Group’s ‘Time to Move’ debut event in Switzerland (retailers saw the 2019 models in March), the Classique Tourbillon Extra-Flat Skeleton 5395 demonstrates Breguet’s unwavering ability to combine its tourbillon design expertise with its highly regarded artisanal finishing capabilities.
Thus, Breguet starts with the existing tourbillon caliber we’ve seen in earlier models 5377 and 5367, remakes the caliber in an especially strong gold alloy, and then removes more than half the movement’s original material to expose its most basic operational architecture.
Further exposed (from the back) by the caliber’s existing peripherally winding platinum rotor, the caliber’s intense décor is a master lesson in traditional Swiss movement finishing.
Clous de Paris (hobnailing), a special micro-guilloche technique used here for the first time at Breguet.
Breguet applies truly handcrafted guilloche on all the remaining plate surfaces, with a particularly intense focus on Clous de Paris (hobnailing) created a ‘micro-guilloche’ technique for the first time at Breguet. Even before this finishing work is done, Breguet’s engravers require more than 120 hours to bevel the edge of every plate and bridge.
Breguet’s engravers require more than 120 hours to bevel the edge of every plate and bridge.
Despite its silicon balance spring, lever, and escape wheel, and an overall spare construction (the titanium tourbillon carriage weighs 0.290 grams and the entire movement is only 3mm thin) the watch offers eighty hours of power reserve thanks to a barrel beating at four hertz.
Every edge is hand beveled to 45 degrees.
From the front, only the familiar fluted Breguet case and the off-center position of the tourbillon recalls Breguet’s earlier designs using the same base caliber. A domed glass-box displays the skeletonized movement, which offers the time along the edges on its sapphire dial with applied, blued gold markers.
Water-resistant to thirty meters, the Breguet Classique Tourbillon Extra-Flat Skeleton 5395 is available with in a 40mm rose gold case or a platinum case. Prices: 220,000 CHF (gold) and 235,000 CHF (platinum).
Additional Breguet 2019 debuts include three all-titanium Marine models, several new Reine de Naples watches, a stunning blue-dialed Marine model for women and a ladies Classique watch with a mother-of-pearl guilloche dial – a premiere dial technique for Breguet. We’ll have more about these new models in upcoming posts.
Specifications: Breguet Classique Tourbillon Extra-Flat Skeleton 5395
Case: 41mm by 7.7mm 18-karat rose gold or platinum with fluted case band and domed glass-box. Sapphire-crystal caseback. Welded lugs with screw bars, water-resistant to 30 meters.
Dial: Sapphire, with offset hours chapter with Roman numerals. Open-tipped Breguet hands in blued steel.
Movement: Automatic skeleton Cal. 581SQ extra-thin (3 millimeters), chamfered, engraved, and engine-turned by hand. Numbered and signed Breguet. 325 components. Peripheral rotor, 80-hour power reserve, barrel on ball-bearing rollers. Reverse-side lever escapement with silicon horns. Frequency 4 hertz. Flat balance spring in silicon. Breguet balance wheel. Titanium tourbillon carriage with small seconds on the tourbillon axis.
Strap: Alligator leather strap with gold folding buckle.