Luxury Watches of the Year 2014 – Highly Commended.
Exuding luxury from every engine-turned flourish on its dial, Breguet’s platinum-clad tourbillon offers mechanical excellence and technical innovation as well as being the world’s slimmest tourbillon-equipped automatic.
As befits a watch bearing the name of the inventor of the mechanism, the Breguet lavishes attention on its off-centre tourbillon, encasing it in a patented titanium carriage. The 581DR movement contained within boasts a silicone hairspring and an escapement crafted from silicone and non-magnetic steel to ensure accuracy is not dragged off-course by magnetised regulating components.
Beating at 4hz, the movement still manages to pack a 90-hour power reserve into a single barrel. That barrel is kept wound by a bi-directional peripheral rotor that, occupying the same plane as the movement rather than sitting on top of it, allows the movement to come in at just 3mm deep and the case to measure only 7mm high. The engine-turned dial exhibits four different patterns all carried out by hand.
