TIMEPIECES

Robb Report BEST OF THE BEST

TOURBILLON

Breguet

OFTEN, THE COMPLEXITY of a watch is seen through a sapphire-crystal caseback, but in Breguet’s Classique Double Tourbillon 5345, the complex 588N movement, introduced in 2006, is now visible on the dial side. Two tourbillon cages are mounted on the movement plate, twirling as they rotate around a fixed differential over a 12-hour period. Part of the two tourbillons’ bridge is blued along half its length to indicate the hour, while an independent blue hand moves separately to indicate the minutes. The tourbillons, along with two mainspring barrels, which are each topped off with a monogram letter B, collectively turn clockwise so you can see the entire calibre move as it tells the time. Would you expect anything less from the brand whose founder, Abraham-Louis Breguet, created the tourbillon more than 200 years ago?

In a further tribute to Monsieur Breguet, the caseback (pictured on page 62) features a next-level hand-engraved rendering of his original manufacture on Paris’s Quai de L’Horloge. The detail is so intricate that you need a loupe to make out the figure of a woman peeping out of a window at the centre, just next to a ruby jewel bearing, as the movement’s golden gear-train wheels spin through windows like the glow of candlelight. Here, history comes full circle to remind the wearer that the minute and groundbreaking inventions that, today, take centre stage on the wrist, rather than inside the pocket, were once conceived by watchmakers with nothing more than the flicker of flames to guide their way.

FUNCTION

De Bethune

WATCHES WITH DUAL dials are nothing new. Jaeger-LeCoultre, of course, is the most widely known, and Patek Philippe’s US$31 million Grandmaster Chime famously had pivoting displays. You would, however, be hard-pressed to find one as futuristic-looking as De