Breguet Classique Complications Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar

The impact of 18th/19th-century watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet upon the watch industry is difficult to encapsulate in just a handful of sentences — developer of the tourbillon as well as the souscription business model, his name is associated with countless innovations that reverberate throughout the horological world to this day.

Though modern wristwatches are somewhat far removed from Breguet's original pocket watches fit for royalty, the French-Swiss master craftsman's design language endures in references such as the 3755PR/1E/9V6, a perpetual calendar with a tourbillon and a skeletonized dial. Housed within the marque's Classique Complications sub-collection, it's quite simply an astounding feat of horology. 

Launched at Baselworld 2005, the 3755PR/1E/9V6 represents the creative apotheosis of early Swatch Group-era Breguet, with the Hayeks intent on conveying A.L. Breguet's importance through inspired use of the tourbillon. Housed in a 40mm platinum case, this example features the coin-edge caseband found in many Breguet references combined with a smooth bezel, signed crown, and sapphire crystal.

The dial's use of ample negative space makes it easy to view the rose gold, hand-wound Calibre 558QPSQ beneath. An incredibly complicated movement, the 558QPSQ includes not only main time-telling functionality, but also a one-minute tourbillon and a perpetual calendar with retrograde date function.

Hand-skeletonized and engraved, the 3755PR/1E/9V6 was produced in extremely limited numbers. That this example comes not only with its correct black alligator strap with platinum deployant clasp — but also its inner and outer boxes, papers and pamphlets, and certificate of origin dating to 2008 — makes it a highly rare bird, indeed. For dedicated Breguet collectors or for those who simply value complicated watchmaking at its finest, this is a piece that's difficult to top.

Few companies are so steeped in history that their name has become a byword for a particular type of product or style. Breguet is one such company: Their famously elegant numerical typeface and matching handset is now de rigueur amongst the most sophisticated dress watches, from Patek Philippe to Longines to, of course, Breguet itself.

However, these numerals and hands are but a single innovation in a long list of horological firsts devised by master watchmaker and inventor Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747-1823), a Neuchatel-born savant whose Parisian career saw the advent of myriad watchmaking creations that we take for granted today. Indeed, it was Breguet who devised the first self-winding watches, as well as the first gongs for repeating watches and the tourbillon. Not many inventors can claim the king and queen of France as patrons, but indeed King Louis XVI and his bride Marie Antoinette were amongst his admirers.

20th-century Breguet is no less storied: The company’s Type 20 pilot’s chronograph issued to the French Aéronautique Militaire in the 1950s provided a benchmark for military watch design. Its stark black dial and utilitarian look belied the sophisticated retour en vol (“flyback”) mechanism within the movement, which allowed a pilot to stop, reset and start the chronograph by depressing the bottom pusher just once.

More recently, under the current management of Mark A. Hayek, modern Breguet has continued to register new patents and amass a dedicated following. The brand’s “Classique” dress watches from the 1990s and 2000s, for example, feature some of the most striking dials in modern watchmaking, making use of guilloché patterns, blue steeled hands and Roman numerals. While the company’s contemporary offerings continue to increase in sophistication and the number of complications available, it’s surely these simple, gorgeous time-only models that best encapsulate the elegant timepieces of A.L. Breguet himself.

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