Tourbillon Day! A Look Back at Breguet’s Best Tourbillons
On June 26th, 1801 Abraham-Louis Breguet patented the tourbillon. 217 years later, his brand is still producing some of the finest (and most accurate) tourbillon timepieces. Here is a look at a few of our recent favorites.
Over the past few years, every June 26th, Breguet celebrates the invention of the tourbillon. These festivities have been dubbed "Tourbillon Day" and every year, Breguet's boutiques around the world roll out a tourbillon shaped cake and delicious French bubbly.
In honor of the 217th "Tourbillon Day" we take a look back at some of our favorite modern Breguet tourbillons. Enjoy!
Grand Feu Enamel Tourbillon
At Baselworld 2018, Breguet introduced the Classique Tourbillon Extra-Flat Automatic 5367. The brand's first enamel Grand Feu - produced in-house. With a finely fluted 42mm case that’s just 7.45mm high, Breguet combined all of its classicism and watchmaking excellence. The blued stainless steel Breguet hands, as well as the Arabic numerals, stand out beautifully against the immaculate translucent white enamel dial. The chapter ring is set delicately off-centered at 11 o’clock, leaving all the attention to the tourbillon situated at 5 o’clock under an ultra-thin bridge bevel finished by hand. Right above the tourbillon hides the secret Breguet signature. Once spotted, it comes to life remarkably on the enamel. A minimalistic approach of great purity altogether. Less is more. Read more at the link below!
Breguet Marine Équation Marchante
Of all the pieces introduced at Baselworld 2017, one reference stood out for us in terms of technical expertise and mechanical poetry. The Marine Équation Marchante 5887. A watch that gave us a unique slant on time-telling. It boasts a remarkable mechanical means to display time via the minute hands in two different ways.
Throughout the year, the dial unveils itself into a constant battle between real solar time and civil time. As the months and seasons progress, the two gradually part company, then draw slowly together, occasionally coinciding. In reality, there is a difference of around +14 to -16 minutes between mean time and real solar time over the space of a year. In fact, it is precisely 24 hours only four times a year. This discrepancy is because the earth's orbit is not circular, but elliptical, and civil time is an artificial division of time devised to arrive at a year comprising 365.25 physical days, each of which is exactly 24 hours. Read more at our in-depth article below!
The Breguet 5377 Extra-Thin tourbillon
Ever since its comeback, the one place a tourbillon was not found was on an extra-slim watch. Naturally, Breguet decided to do something about it. Together, the brand's engineers, designers, and watchmakers worked to produce the self-winding extra-thin Reference 5377 Classique Tourbillon. This pink gold timepiece, with a diameter of 42 millimetres, exudes all of Breguet’s signature qualities.
A hand-guilloché dial, the company’s tradenmark blued steel "pomme” hands, welded attachments, fine fluting on the case, the individual production number, and of course, the “secret” signature. This pure Breguet timepiece features an off-centre tourbillon, whose design generated several patents. For instance, the tourbillon cage is in titanium and the balance-spring is made of silicon. The escapement is made of silicon and anti-magnetic steel. Read more at our dedicated article below!
The Calibre 581 DR that powers the timepiece has a frequency of 4 Hz (or 28,800 v.p.h.), quite high for a tourbillon, and a power reserve of 90 hours thanks to the patented “high energy” barrel.
(Photography by Liam O’Donnell)