Breguet Marks 225 Years of the Tourbillon With Four New Watches

Breguet doesn’t need to borrow romance from watchmaking history, because it owns one of its most important chapters.

In 2026, the manufacture is marking 225 years since Abraham-Louis Breguet patented the tourbillon in 1801 with four new watches that place the mechanism in very different settings, from restrained Classique codes to a celestial flying tourbillon.

The result is less a single anniversary watch than a reminder of how flexible the tourbillon has become inside Breguet’s modern language.

At a glance

A complication with Breguet at its centre

Abraham-Louis Breguet received the patent for the tourbillon in 1801, creating a rotating regulating organ designed to improve precision in pocket watches affected by gravity in vertical positions.

During his lifetime, Breguet’s workshop completed 40 tourbillons, a small number that gives the invention its proper context as a demanding chronometric pursuit rather than a decorative flourish.

Two and a quarter centuries later, the tourbillon has become one of the most recognisable displays of high watchmaking, but it still carries unusual weight at Breguet because the complication began there.

The brand’s modern tourbillon story gained fresh momentum in 1989 with the Ref. 3350, the first modern Breguet tourbillon wristwatch and a key piece in the revival of the house’s classical signatures.

Those signatures remain central today, including guilloché dials, fluted case bands, blued Breguet hands, refined cases and complicated movements that favour legibility as much as display.

The Classique Tourbillon 7357 keeps the form pure

The Classique Tourbillon 7357 is the most direct link to the Ref. 3350, and it reads as the quietest watch in the anniversary group.

Its 30 mm movement sits inside a 35 mm case without a casing ring, giving the proportions a compactness that suits the Classique line’s formal character.

Inside is the Calibre 187B, derived from the Calibre 558 and beating at a historically resonant 2.5 Hz.

The dial is made from 18K gold and decorated with hand guilloché, with Clous de Paris in the centre and Barleycorn around the outer section.

Breguet Arabic numerals, two cartouches and the discreet secret signature keep the watch rooted in the maison’s visual vocabulary.

The applied chapter ring, cartouche and small seconds are in 18K rhodium-plated Breguet gold, while the hour and minute hands are 18K gold blued in Bleu de France.

The same blue treatment appears on the three-armed seconds hand of the tourbillon, which curves with the contour of the cage positioned slightly below the dial surface.

Instead of a single bridge crossing the tourbillon, the Calibre 187B uses a double rounded polished arched bridge, a more demanding element that adds depth without disturbing the dial’s restraint.

Turn the watch over and the movement’s baseplate carries a new guilloché motif visible through sapphire crystal, with caseback inspiration drawn from the Dent de Vaulion in the Vallée de Joux.

Four peripheral inlays around the movement receive a Bleu de France treatment, an anniversary-era detail that gives the otherwise traditional watch a cooler modern register.

The Sidéral 7255 brings the tourbillon into space

The Classique Tourbillon Sidéral 7255 is the most theatrical of the confirmed new pieces, and it earns that position through mechanics rather than size alone.

It is Breguet’s first wristwatch to incorporate a flying tourbillon, paired with a mysterious display that creates the impression of the tourbillon moving independently of the movement.

The astronomical mood is not incidental, since the word tourbillon also carried celestial associations in 18th-century French, describing the rotation of bodies and systems.

Here, that idea is made visible through a black aventurine enamel dial with green highlights, placed inside a 38 mm platinum fluted case.

The dial arrangement gives the upper half to Breguet numerals and hands, while the lower half is dominated by the tourbillon, creating a deliberate contrast between classical time display and mechanical theatre.

The chapter ring is gold with a black treatment, while the Breguet and Tourbillon appliqués are rhodium-plated Breguet gold.

The upper tourbillon bridge is also rhodium-plated Breguet gold, helping the mechanism remain visually tied to the rest of the composition rather than appearing as a separate spectacle.

The back of the watch continues the decorative work with a Quai de l’Horloge guilloché mainplate and perlage on the underside of the tourbillon.

Details & Specifications

The broader anniversary quartet also places the tourbillon inside the Tradition and Marine collections, with the Tradition Tourbillon 7047 and Marine Tourbillon Équation Marchante 5887 extending the celebration beyond the Classique line.

That breadth is the point.

For Breguet, the tourbillon is not simply an inherited trophy, but a mechanism the house can still interpret through proportion, finishing, architecture and mood.

At 225 years old, it remains one of watchmaking’s most powerful ideas, and in Breguet’s hands it still feels closely connected to the bench where it began.