A 250-YEAR RETROSPECTIVE

Breguet releases the single-hand Classique Souscription 2025 to tell their quarter-millennial story

- STORY: KANOKPORN CHANASONGKRAM

Throughout 2025, several models will commemorate Breguet’s 250th anniversary, starting with one that’s out of the blue.

“We wanted to surprise people by presenting not a grand complication, as some might have expected, but a single-hand watch. Through the Classique Souscription 2025, we wanted to tell a story, our story,” said the new CEO Gregory Kissling.

Today, operations take place at Breguet Manufactures in the Vallée de Joux and Le Crêt-du-Locle in Switzerland, while the story began in Neuchâtel, where Abraham-Louis Breguet was born in 1747.

In his teenage years, he left his home-town to pursue an apprenticeship in France. In 1775, the Breguet workshop opened its doors on Quai de l'Horloge, Île de la Cité in Paris.

The French Revolution spurred his return to Switzerland, where he stayed for around two years. Back in Paris in 1795, A.-L. Breguet resumed his business and worked on numerous projects including the revolutionary Souscription.

Available as a pre-order from 1797, the large pocket watch with a diameter of 61mm and a white enamel dial had only one hand.