Celebrating 250 Years of Breguet With New Classique Souscription 2025

Breguet are celebrating their 250^th anniversary this year, which is a seriously impressive feat of longevity for any modern brand, across any industry. It was in 1775 that Abraham-Louis Breguet established his workshop at the Quai de l’Horloge on the Ile de la Cité, Paris. To celebrate the occasion, they’ve launched the Breguet Classique Souscription 2025.

Since 1775 Breguet has undergone many shifts and changes in their design philosophy. Over the years they’ve tackling concepts of haute horology, military watches and dress watches. In recent times their designs have become more and more extreme in terms of focussing on extreme finishing and the peak of haute horology with creations like the Marine Tourbillon Equation Marchante and the Golden Classique Double Tourbillon. For 2025, another shift is on the way under the guidance of their new CEO Gregory Kissling, pushing them in a slightly different direction.

This new direction is all about modernisation while paying tribute to the brand’s extensive heritage. For example, Breguet has a new logo that’s much cleaner and more legible, though they are retaining the traditional cursive design on the dials of the actual watches. New packaging that feels fresh but that’s actually inspired by vintage pocket watch packaging. It’s essentially a soft rebrand of the entire company, tied into the 250^th anniversary celebrations.

Speaking of which, let’s turn our attention to the new Classique Souscription 2025. The elements of that rebrand are immediately apparent in this new watch. It’s based on a 1796 Souscription pocket watch, so pays tribute to the brand’s history, but features modernised elements such as a brand-new case. It measures 40mm in diameter in Breguet gold, a new proprietary alloy made from 75% gold and then a combination of silver, copper and palladium. According to Breguet its blond colour is less intense than traditional yellow gold without being quite so pink as rose gold, sitting somewhere between the two. Though to my eye it leans comfortably towards yellow.

In developing this new alloy, Breguet had several goals. First and foremost, it’s more durable than other types of gold, especially in terms of retaining its purity and colour without tarnishing. They also wanted to ensure that it’s suitable for their diverse array of finishing techniques such as brushing, polishing and guilloché. To showcase this, the flanks of the Souscription 2025 have done away with the traditional Classique fluted caseband in order to display the immaculate brushing. There’s also a new style of guilloché called Quai de l’Horloge around the edge of the caseback like a woven ribbon.

For the dial, it’s virtually a direct lift from the original 1796 Souscription pocket watch. Meaning it’s white with a single hand display and Breguet numerals. To achieve the stark contrast they’ve used white grand feu enamel for the base and the numerals and Breguet logo are then in black enamel as well. There’s also a secret engraving above the 6 o’clock numeral that reads Souscription No. 250 Breguet, which is a sign authenticity that was used in the early day of Breguet designs. Around the periphery of the display is a railway track style hour and minute display – the 60 minutes of each hour being shown as the progression between each hour numeral, as is the style of single hand watches.

Powering the display is a new movement, the VS00, which again is the perfect blend of modern and heritage elements. It’s made from brass to match the tone of the Breguet gold case and features an architecture heavily inspired by the original movement from the pocket watch. However, it features a modern Nivachron hairspring with Breguet overcoil for reliable accuracy and anti-magnetic properties. It also has a 4-day power reserve via a single barrel with manual winding.

As is always the case with Breguet, it’s finished immaculately. The mainplate has a shot-blast finish giving it a slightly frosted, grainy look. The central ratchet wheel bears an engraving in A-L Breguet’s handwriting with the text taken from the original promotional pamphlet for the Souscription pocket watch. Souscription, if you’ve been wondering, means subscription and is a method of retailing watches that’s most commonly used by independent watchmakers these days. It essentially means the watches are made to order with an initial deposit that the watchmaker uses to fund the production of the actual watch prior to final payment when the watch is finished.

The Breguet Classique Souscription 2025 exemplifies the new direction Breguet is taking, with a focus on refinement, traditional heritage designs and modern techniques. It’s not a complete identity change as those have always been core tenets of the brand, instead serving as more of a fresh spritz and slight facelift. Something any 250-year-old would need. While it is an anniversary edition, it’s non-limited at a price of £45,700. Which makes sense for a gold wristwatch with a full enamel dial and high spec movement.

More details at Breguet.

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