'Breguet makes watches that do not break down for twenty years, while the miserable machine that makes us live breaks down and produces pain at least once a week'. If Stendhal's words encapsulate a pessimistic view of the mortal human body, at the same time they reveal the writer's high regard for the works of Master Abraham-Louis Breguet. The man whose genius revolutionised every sector of watchmaking. And to this day, the Breguet brand does not betray this reputation, having carefully preserved fundamental values such as elegance, purity of line and mastery of grand complications.
Speaking of complications, Breguet is now launching a reinterpretation of its perpetual calendar in the Classique collection. The new Classique Perpetual Calendar 7327 is a more contemporary version of the 5327 introduced in 2004, while remaining faithful to the stylistic codes of the collection.
The dial has been revisited and 'simplified', which also benefits legibility, with fewer indications and a smaller moon phase display. But always in the best tradition of Breguet dials. Their manufacture is an art: carried out on a solid gold base, they are still made by hand. As are the guilloché engravings and silvering, always applying precious craftsmanship techniques introduced two centuries ago by the Master.
Compared to its predecessor, the central Clous de Paris motif has a more discreet and subtle texture. The moon phases, reduced to an arc, are hand-hammered. The sky is coated with blue lacquer with small golden specks to represent the stars. The day, date and year are arranged at the bottom of the dial, while a retrograde counter between 10 and 12 displays the months.
For the movement, the automatic 502.3.P, the base is that of one of Breguet's slimmest calibres, the 502 just 4.5 mm thick, to which the perpetual calendar module is added. It beats at a frequency of 3 Hz, boasts a 45-hour power reserve and is equipped with a flat silicon balance spring. Compared to Ref. 5327, in which the movement was richly decorated on both the bridges and the rotor, the 7327 features more sober and modern finishes: côtes de Genève on the bridges and a circular barleycorn motif for the oscillating weight, visible from the caseback side.
The 39 mm case in white or rose gold reaches a thickness of 9.13 mm, which is rather thin for a perpetual. The four pushers recessed in the case middle regulate the various calendar indications. It comes with an alligator strap (blue for white gold, brown for pink gold).
Price86,600 euro.
