Abraham-Louis Breguet was a man obsessed with precision. It was his tireless quest for perfection that led him to devise the tourbillon, which he patented in 1801. He continued to develop many innovations and inventions in his endless pursuit of tracking time ever more accurately.
Today, the house of Breguet continues in this vein – innovation, invention and vision are the brand’s goals, each to be aimed for without ever losing sight of the art of haute horology craftsmanship.
This may well be why the brand has registered more than 100 patents in the past ten years, including several that advanced the technology within the tourbillon escapement, materials and technology. Among those advancements: the Twin Tourbillon (patented in 2006) and the winding stem and time-setting device for the Twin Tourbillon. Additionally, the brand works with silicium and forward-thinking materials to blend past, present and future into time.
Inside
A walk through the Breguet factory proves its dedication to that creed. This is a brand that has changed nearly its entire watch collection in the past five years. Its staff has grown in the past decade from about 250 watchmakers and artisans to 1,000. From the raw materials to the making of the tools with which to create the watches, to the movement parts and more – Breguet is a vertically integrated manufacture that puts precision and craftsmanship first. Every watch that is built carries its own serial number and each undergoes excessive testing and quality control before being sold and logged into the continuously kept Breguet ledgers.
Within the Manufacture – which is currently undergoing expansion – each important aspect of watchmaking has its own home. The Sympathetique clock and Traditional watches are built in the Marie Antoinette room (these watches are also made here) in which twenty master craftsmen toil to create these special pieces.
There is a separate top-secret room where the brand’s incredible array of tourbillons is built. In fact, Breguet is among the largest producers of tourbillons anywhere, and it has the largest offering of the whirling wonders on the market with twenty-one different types of tourbillons and seven different tourbillon cages.
Another room houses the specialists responsible for building the brand’s minute repeaters and the Musicale. Engraving, polishing and finishing takes place in a larger area where artisans work side by side perfecting their art on metal. Breguet even makes and tests the chain and fusee for its fusee and chain watches in its workshops.
Of course watch movement assembly, watch assembly, complete on-premises dial stamping and much more all exist symbiotically – much the way traditional watchmaking was done in the past, but with a distinctive look to the future thanks to computers, high-tech materials and top-secret engineering feats.
