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History of Breguet Watches

Everyone thought Nicolas G. Hayek was crazy when he thought of buying Breguet from its owner, Invest-Corp, in the 1990s. In fact Cartier had recently turned down an offer to purchase the august timepiece company because the brand was viewed as passé. Even Hayek’s colleagues in the Swatch Group wondered why he wanted “to mess around with a brand that no longer sold to anyone but the King of Morocco.” Yet Hayek stuck to his guns. In September 1999 he paid an estimated 200 million Swiss Francs ($151,975,700) for the company originally founded in 1755 by Paris resident and Neuchatel native Abraham-Louis Breguet. It soon became clear that Hayek had been particularly perceptive in sensing the brand’s artistic, technical, historic and media potential. In a mere six years he put the company back on its feet. Hayek invested fifteen million francs ($11,398,200) in the Nouvelle Lemania workshops (once the suppliers of Breguet movements and certain Omega calibers) to provide Breguet with a full-fledged watch factory and renamed them Manufacture Breguet.

The King of Watch Making

Next, the brand’s image was reoriented to emphasize Breguet’s role in the history of watch making. Hayek worked overtime to make it known that Breguet watch-maker to the kings, king of the watchmakers, producer of watches once praised by Balzac, Stendhal and Pushkin was an integral part of Europe’s cultural heritage. Hayek also pushed production of the watch that single-handedly represented Breguet’s standard of excellence and would significantly expand the company’s prestige among consumers: the tourbillon. By reestablishing this 1801 complication, which was invented by its founder to eliminate the effect of gravity on watch movements, as an essential component of the brand’s image, Nicolas G. Hayek pulled off his gambit to boost Breguet back up the ranks of luxury haute horlogerie companies.

Breguet Company Profits

To elevate the company’s prestige and add to its archive of timepieces, Hayek began traveling to auctions and buying all the Breguet masterpieces that came on the block. In 2002 he spent $1.9 million to acquire a No. 1188 tourbillon watch, circa 1808. His strategy soon paid off. Breguet is today the second-most profitable brand of the Swatch Group. Its annual sales are estimated at a half-billion Swiss francs (about $488 million), with production in the neighborhood of twenty-five thousand watches per year. What watch enthusiasts seek from Breguet is to claim a little piece of horological history for themselves. After all, from the end of the eighteenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth century, Abraham-Louis Breguet, who is considered one of the forefathers of the modern automatic watch, invented pretty much everything there was to invent in the field of timekeeping. He invented the first watches to be wound without a key, the “double-seconds” chronometer (the forebear of the modern chronometer), the montre a tact, a “touch watch” that could read by touch rather than by sight, and the pare-chute, which as the first shock-absorption device for watch mechanisms, considerably improved the operation and reliability of watch movements. We also have Breguet to than for the constant force escapement and of course the Breguet Spiral. Finally, Breguet laid the foundations for modern watch aesthetics by creating guilloche dials, so-called Breguet hands and numerals (completely unadorned), and off-center hour markers.

The Breguet Brand

The Breguet company’s contemporary collections offer reinterpretations of the brand’s rich back catalog through watches distinguished by both their dashing neoclassical appearance and their fine calibers. Today Breguet is known as the top tourbillon manufacturer in the world for the simple reason that its ten or so tourbillon models are incontestably the most beautiful and finely crafted on the market. A “simple” tourbillon with manual winding starts at $92,700; a skeletonized tourbillon, with the option to be combined developed a regulator tourbillon with automatic winding and a five-day power reserve. And in 2006 a spectacular double tourbillon was developed, the first model of which due to its complexity, was not made available until the beginning of 2009. This piece, which contains 570 components, boasts two independent tourbillon, rotating on the hour axis. As the operation of the watch corresponds to the mean rate of the two tourbillons, it is twice as accurate as a classic tourbillon and costs around $400,000. Breguet model is the perpetual equation of time watch, perpetual calendar. Another notable Breguet model is the perpetual equation of time watch, which sells for $161,700 in rose gold. Patented in 1991, this watch displays the difference between true solar time and mean solar time, as well as serving as a perpetual calendar.

The Breguet Heritage

The company has also conceived a model that is particularly emblematic of the Breguet heritage: the Tradition watch. Inspired by A.-L. Breguet’s “subscription watches,” this model required three years of development to perfect its tribute to the founder’s crucial 1790 invention: the pare-chute, which serves to protect the watch’s balance-staff. What’s most interesting about the Tradition watch is that the bridges, wheels, escapements, barrels and other components of the movement generally hidden under the main plate are as visible as the dial. It is available in various models, one with automatic windup. It is a stunningly beautiful piece that will set you back about $32,850 in yellow gold.

Breguet Collections

Finally, Breguet is also known for two sportier lines, the Marine chronographs and the Type XX collection. In the Marine Family, with a recently revamped, jazzier design, the automatic chronograph in rose gold is quite finely crafted ($28,550). The Type XX consists of automatic chronographs with fly-back functions originally designed in the 1950s for French naval aviators. With prices starting at $6,950, this is the entry-level watch for newcomers to the coveted world of Breguet.

An exhibition under the title “Breguet and the Louvre-An Apogee of European Watchmaking” recently came to close at the Louvre in Paris, having been one of the most steeped in tradition. Tens of thousands of visitors were able to view an exhibition that filled an entire hall in the Sully Wing of the museum from June to September, showcasing more than 200 exhibits, some on loan from other collections such as the British Royal Collection, Moscow’sKremlin, the Paris Musée des Arts et Metiers, and the Swiss National Museum.

The exhibition was, however, just a high-publicity prelude to a far larger effort by the manufactory to support the restoration of the Salles du Conseil d’Etat and Salno Beauvais in the Louis XIV Wing. President and director of the museum Henri Loyrette is thrilled about the unexpected support since the collections of art, furnishings, and jewelry housed there are “a shining witness to eighteenth-century French savoir faire, unmatched anywhere in the world.”

In a way this is also true of the watches by Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747-1823), the horological virtues of whose time continue to be honored and respected by the employees at the Breguet manufactory in L’Abbaye, Switzerland.

 Fluted cases, silver-plated gold dials authentically guilloché by hand, soldered strap lugs, and screw-mounted strap bars are just as much a part of the Breguet standard today as the finely finished movements decorated with côtes de Genève and perlage, the polished beveled edges of steel parts, and the automatic gold rotors found on many models.

Alongside the use of the latest in modern tools, handcraftsmanship still plays a significant role in the production of these fine watches. Adhering to such methods allows Breguet watches to live up to the fine tradition of their great name. At the same time, Breguet is one of the few brands to work with modern materials such as silicon in its movements should this serve to improve quality and rate precision.