A little bit retro, a little bit innovative---Breguet Classique Souscription 2025

Breguet, one of the oldest and most skilled watchmakers in the world, celebrates its 250th anniversary this year with the unexpected launch of the Classique Souscription 2025 - not a ground-breaking Grande Complication, but a purely single-handed chiming watch.

More than two centuries earlier, Breguet had pre-sold the Souscription pocket watch in advertising brochures, using a marketing technique unheard of at the time, similar to that of a deposit: if a customer wished to purchase such a timepiece, he or she would only have to pay one-quarter of the selling price in order to confirm the pre-purchase order. This advance payment allowed the Breguet workshop in the Quai de l'Horloge to purchase the raw materials needed to make the timepieces, and allowed Breguet to start mass production. Over a period of more than 20 years, Breguet produced some 700 timepieces in this way. Today, Breguet is reinterpreting the historic and innovative Subscription pocket watch, launching the Classique Subscription 2025BH in Paris. The Subscription is the first timepiece to feature a minimalist construction, with a single hand indicating the time at a glance on a pristine white enamel dial.

The new Classique Souscription 2025 watch uses the so-called Breguet gold material. It is a mixture of gold, silver, copper and palladium. I searched the patents and found no newly applied 18K gold alloy patents. Neither Breguet nor Blancpain has its own precious metal smelting workshop. I guess this is probably borrowed from Omega's Moonshine Gold formula.

The 18-carat gold case is 40 millimeters in diameter and 10.8 millimeters thick, and includes sapphire crystals that arch slightly at the top and bottom of the case. The design of the middle case and lugs is quite different from previous Breguet Classique watches. The usual straight Breguet lugs have been eliminated, and the lugs look more integrated and taper towards the strap, while curving slightly downwards towards the wrist. Another major change is the finish of the middle case. Breguet has been known in the past for its watches with coin patterns. The new Classique Souscription 2025, on the other hand, features a refined horizontal satin-brushed finish.

Like the original, the Classique Souscription 2025 features just one blued steel hand with Breguet’s signature open tip design. This hand rotates once every 12 hours. Between the numerals marking each hour, you’ll find dashes every five minutes, as well as the quarter-hour markers highlighted in bold. While this isn’t the most precise time display, it’s very easy to read and understand.

The pure white Grand Feu enamel dial features small black flame Arabic numerals, a minute track, and the Breguet signature at 12 o’clock. There’s also a “secret” engraving at 6 o’clock, which Breguet originally added to make its design more difficult to copy.

The new movement is inspired by the original movement of the Souscription pocket watch. When you turn over the Classique Souscription 2025, it almost looks like a Breguet Tradition watch. This is no coincidence, as the movement of the original pocket watch was also the inspiration for the Tradition collection when it was launched in 2005. The movement is adorned with this year's new Quai de Nouveau design inspired by the distinctive curves of the Parisian Île de la Cité and the slender shapes of the Île Saint-Louis, creating an ever-changing rhythm of harmony.

The VS00 hand-wound caliber has a typical Breguet structure with a symmetrical layout and a minimalist design for the bridges. The inscription on the center ratchet is derived from a text found in Breguet's original marketing material of 1797. The movement is gilded and sandblasted, beats at 21,600 vph, is set with 21 jewels, and has a power reserve of 96 hours on a single barrel. What's very strange is the abandonment of the long-standing silicon hairspring in favor of the alloy Nivachron hairspring - a technological step backward, and it's a bit puzzling to see Breguet going in the opposite direction when Rolex is now making heavy use of silicon in their new models.

The Breguet Classique Souscription 2025 watch is priced at 53,800 euros. The sales strategy is based on the old man, and a quarter of the price is paid in advance. To be honest, it is equivalent to nearly 440,000 yuan. At this price, you can buy a perpetual calendar gold watch in the secondary market. It is a simple functional watch, but the price is quite expensive.

BTW, the online reputation of this watch is polarized, with many people praising it and some criticizing it. My opinion is that such a simple watch should not be released to the world in such a big year as the 250th anniversary. Breguet is the most important inventor in the history of the watch industry. Without technological breakthroughs, Breguet always feels that something is missing. I searched Swiss and European patents online and found that Breguet has not had any new patents since 2014. It seems that after the research and development planned by old Hayek was completed, the younger Hayeks cut off the investment in technology research and development. It is really sad.