Since 2003 Breguet has had four major expansions of its Vallee de Joux workshops. In its newest wing, Breguet has organized its watchmakers into specialty groups which include a tourbillon group and a minute repeater group.
Tourbillon watches are a key pillar of Breguet’s patrimony as it was its founder, Abraham-Louis Breguet, who invented the tourbillon and who gave his invention the name “tourbillon”. We are privileged to film a watchmaker assembling some of the key components of Breguet’s La Tradition Tourbillon with its fusee and chain system.
Then we move our cameras to the adjacent work benches, those for minute repeaters. Minute repeaters are particularly demanding to assemble as they call upon not only supreme watchmaking skills but artistic talent to tune the sound.
And we will watch key steps in the tuning process of one of Breguet’s minute repeaters including delicate adjustments to the sounding gongs, which incidentally were also invented by A.L. Breguet. The visit concludes with an examination of the newest Breguet minute repeater that debuted at Basel 2015, the La Tradition Minute Repeater Tourbillon with its vertical hammers, uniquely shaped gongs, magnetic regulator and constant force chain system.