Interview with Gregory Kissling and Emmanuel Breguet, Breguet’s CEO and respectively Head of Patrimony

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Discover the Legacy of Innovation: an in-depth Interview with Gregory Kissling, CEO, and Emmanuel Breguet, Head of Patrimony at Breguet, as they discuss the iconic Classique Souscription 2025 and the enduring heritage of a timepiece celebrating 250 Years of Masterful Watchmaking Excellence.

Interview with Gregory Kissling, CEO of Breguet

What does this first anniversary model mean to Breguet?
This first model, the Classique Souscription 2025, is symbolic in several ways. Back in A.-L. Breguet’s time, when it was developed towards the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, it marked a revival of the desire to make it a watch for everyone. A reliable watch, simple in its construction and approach, with a single hand, that would enable a wider public to tell the time.

Why did you choose to start this celebration with a Souscription?
We wanted to surprise people by presenting not a grand complication, as some might have expected, but a single-hand watch. We added a great deal of richness to this apparently simple watch, particularly in the architecture of its movement, inspired by that of the tact watch. Through this model, we wanted to tell a story, our story. We had never showcased a movement with a Tradition architecture in a wristwatch featuring a full dial.

What was the aesthetic approach behind this new model?
This is the first time that we have taken a pocket watch and adapted it to a wristwatch format, respecting as closely as possible the architecture of the original timepiece. We have reduced the diameter from 60 mm to 40 mm, while maintaining a display accuracy of around one to two minutes, which is remarkable for a single hand. We have done away with the straight lugs in favour of curved lugs.
For the case middle, we opted for a satin finish rather than fluting, as A.-L. Breguet’s Souscription watch was not fluted. In addition, we incorporated a chevé glass, and the incredible thing is that we recently discovered that this form of crystal, which everyone uses today to refine the aesthetic of the case middle, was invented by A.-L. Breguet.
We naturally decided to decorate the case back with the new exclusive Quai de l’Horloge guilloché motif. The ratchet wheel, on which we engraved part of A.-L. Breguet’s words explaining the design of the Souscription movement, continues the theme of paying homage to our founder.

What kind of craftsmanship did you use for the dial?
We opted for the tradition of grand feu enamel, with petit feu for the numerals, and the secret signature.
Nowadays, this signature is often reproduced on enamelled dials using a tone-on-tone transfer, whereas in A.-L. Breguet’s day, it was produced using a diamond-tipped pantograph. We have bought one dating from the same period, and our restoration workshop engraves the secret signature using the dry-point technique.
And finally, the hand, which seems simple on the surface, is in fact complex in its design, because it is made the old-fashioned way, refined by hand and flame-blued, in the purest watchmaking tradition.

Interview with Emmanuel Breguet, Head of Patrimony

How did the Souscription watch presented in 1796 confirm A.-L. Breguet’s avant-garde spirit?
The Souscription watch brilliantly illustrates A.-L. Breguet’s sense of innovation, whose genius was expressed as much in watchmaking technique as in commercial daring.
Conceived during his enforced stay in Switzerland during the French Revolution, this apparently simple timepiece was accompanied by a revolutionary marketing method: Souscription. By paying a quarter of the price when the order was placed, customers enabled Breguet to organise its production and pay its craftsmen in advance – a vision unheard of in the world of watchmaking. And that’s not all: the watch was also the subject of an advertising pamphlet, a real innovation for the time! With this new approach, Breguet addressed its potential customers directly and demonstrated a great deal of pedagogy. Not only did it reinvent the watch, but it also reinvented the way it was sold, once again confirming the pioneering status of this watch. Needless to say, the Souscription watch was a great commercial success and a milestone in Breguet’s career.

Does Breguet have any historic Souscription watches in its collections?
Yes, the House of Breguet has had the privilege of enriching its collections with several historic Souscription watches, acquired over the years at auction. The Breguet museum has various models, in silver and gold, and in different sizes. They illustrate this chapter in Breguet’s history. Among these treasures are the remarkably well-preserved No. 246, No. 324, No. 383, No. 1576 and No. 3424 watches. They bear striking witness to the vision of their creator and the singular place this model occupies in the history of watchmaking. Each of these pieces, in its own way, tells the story of Breguet’s bold modernity, design genius and commercial imagination. And let’s not forget that, beneath its simple exterior, Breguet introduced several innovations to the Souscription watch: a new ruby size to optimise lubrication, the definitive shape of the “Pare-chute” shock-absorbing system, a secret signature, and a movement layout that improved repairability.

What is the link between Souscription watches and tact watches?
The tact watches are a direct descendant of the Souscription watches; they use the same movement architecture but add a remarkable innovation: reading the time by touch. An external arrow reproduces the position of the hour hand, allowing the time to be read without opening the watch, and twelve markers are placed on the case middle (gold dots, pearls, small or large diamonds). Also known as “watches for the blind”, these watches are especially useful for telling the time in the dark or, quite simply, discreetly: that’s what tact is all about! These highly refined creations were worn by famous people. Among the pieces conserved by the Breguet museum is the No. 611 tact watch, acquired in 1800 by Joséphine de Beauharnais, wife of Napoléon Bonaparte and future empress. Her daughter Hortense inherited this jewel enriched with blue enamel and diamonds, and in turn had an H in precious stones added, thus continuing the destiny of this imperial timepiece.

Can you tell us about the pantograph?
The pantograph was the instrument used by A.-L. Breguet to engrave his secret signature on the dial of his watches. Discreet in size and virtually invisible to the naked eye, this signature authenticates his creations. It was also an effective means of combating counterfeiting, which was already rife at the time. The Maison Breguet was recently fortunate enough to acquire an antique pantograph from the collections of the great watchmaker George Daniels, a passionate admirer of Breguet. This tool, fitted with a diamond tip, now enables us to reproduce this secret signature on contemporary Souscription watches, thus perpetuating a historic gesture.

Breguet watches are individually numbered from 250 to 5250. What’s the story behind it?
The individual numbering of today’s Breguet watches has its origins in a practice dating back to the early days of the company. As early as the 1780s, Breguet watches were numbered according to a system that allowed them to be precisely dated. In 1787, a new series began with number 1. In 1791, another new series began, also numbered from 1, and continued until number 5121. Faced with the proliferation of counterfeit watches, Breguet adopted a precautionary principle: each series was limited to around 5,000 pieces. By the middle of the 19th century, the tradition of producing series from numbers 250 to 5250 had taken root and continues to this day. Each Breguet watch bears a unique number, carefully recorded in the archives and engraved on the case, movement or dial, guaranteeing its authenticity and belonging to this historic lineage.