Breguet Classique Tourbillon 7357: A Compact 35 mm Revival Marks 225 Years of the Tourbillon

Description

On 26 June 2026 — exactly 225 years to the day after Abraham-Louis Breguet was granted the patent for the tourbillon on 26 June 1801 (7 Messidor, An IX of the French Republican calendar) — Breguet marked the anniversary of its most famous invention with a four-watch tourbillon collection. The piece aimed squarely at enthusiasts is the Classique Tourbillon 7357: a deliberately old-school 35 mm tourbillon, offered in platinum or 18-carat Breguet gold, and — unusually for a watch of this calibre — part of the permanent collection rather than a numbered limited edition.

The 7357 is not a reissue but a reinterpretation of the celebrated Ref. 3350 of 1989, the first modern Breguet wristwatch to carry a tourbillon and the watch widely credited with dragging the complication back into contemporary relevance. It keeps the 3350's compact proportions while adopting the design language Breguet introduced for its 250th anniversary in 2025. With a hand-guilloché gold dial, a movement derived from the historic Calibre 558, and a price of roughly €166,500 to €183,100 (about USD 184,800 to USD 203,300), it is the anniversary watch built to be worn rather than admired behind glass.

Design

The case is a refined 35 mm in diameter and just 9.2 mm thick, with redesigned lugs that sit more naturally on the wrist and Breguet's signature fluted caseband, executed by hand using traditional guilloché. The 18-carat gold dial is decorated entirely by hand with two of the Manufacture's emblematic motifs — a Clous de Paris pattern at the centre and a Grain d'Orge motif around the chapter ring — beneath hand-applied Breguet Arabic numerals and the house's open-tipped hands finished in Bleu de France. Four blue inlays, a colour Breguet reserves for exceptional creations, frame the anniversary inscriptions "Brevet du 7 Messidor An 9" and "Tourbillon 225th Anniversary".

At 6 o'clock the one-minute tourbillon sits slightly below the level of the dial, exposing more of the movement and adding visual depth, while the traditional bridge of the old Calibre 558 has been reinterpreted as an elegant double-arched construction. The platinum reference pairs an anthracite-treated 18-carat gold dial with a grey calfskin strap and a platinum triple-folding clasp; the Breguet gold version combines a silvered gold dial with a beige calfskin strap and a matching gold deployant clasp. The sapphire caseback reveals the movement, its rear decorated with a newly created hand-guilloché pattern inspired by the Dent de Vaulion, one of the peaks overlooking the Vallée de Joux.

Specifications

Reference numbers: 7357BH/1H/386 (18-carat Breguet gold) and 7357PT/1A/386 (platinum)
Case diameter: 35 mm
Case thickness: 9.2 mm
Case material: 18-carat Breguet gold or platinum; hand-guilloché fluted caseband; redesigned lugs
Crystal: Sapphire
Caseback: Sapphire display caseback (hand-guilloché "Dent de Vaulion" decoration on the movement)
Dial: 18-carat gold, fully hand-guilloché (Clous de Paris centre, Grain d'Orge chapter ring); Breguet numerals; open-tipped Bleu de France hands; four blue inlays. Platinum: anthracite-treated gold dial. Gold: silvered gold dial
Movement: Calibre 187B, manual-winding (direct successor to the historic Calibre 558)
Movement dimensions: 30 mm diameter x 4.85 mm thick
Complication: One-minute tourbillon at 6 o'clock
Escapement / hairspring: Silicon escapement; patented Breguet Nivachron balance spring (enhanced anti-magnetism)
Frequency: 18,000 vph (2.5 Hz) — the historically correct cadence favoured by Abraham-Louis Breguet and the 1989 Ref. 3350
Winding: Manual
Power reserve: 60 hours (about 50% more than the Ref. 3350)
Strap: Grey calfskin with platinum triple-folding clasp (platinum); beige calfskin with Breguet gold deployant clasp (gold)
Limited edition: No — joins the permanent collection
Price: EUR 166,500 (Breguet gold) / EUR 183,100 (platinum); approx. USD 184,800 / USD 203,300
Availability: 2026, permanent collection

What's Exciting

This is the anniversary piece that actually speaks to collectors rather than the display cabinet. Where so many milestone watches chase size and spectacle, Breguet went the other way: a true-to-history 35 mm tourbillon beating at the original 2.5 Hz cadence that Abraham-Louis Breguet himself favoured, reviving the seminal Ref. 3350 that single-handedly returned the tourbillon to modern horology. The new Calibre 187B keeps the soul of the 558 while quietly upgrading what matters — a silicon escapement, a patented Nivachron hairspring for magnetic resistance, and a power reserve pushed to 60 hours.

For the house that invented the complication 225 years ago, a compact, hand-guilloché, permanent-collection tourbillon is exactly the right way to mark the date. It is not a limited edition chasing scarcity; it is a statement that the tourbillon, in Breguet's hands, remains a wearable, living idea rather than a museum exhibit. That restraint — historically literate, technically modern, and sized for the wrist — is what makes the 7357 the standout of the four anniversary models.

History

The tourbillon is Breguet's defining contribution to watchmaking. On 26 June 1801, Abraham-Louis Breguet was granted the patent for a device that places the escapement and balance inside a rotating carriage to average out the rate errors caused by gravity. For most of the next two centuries it remained a rarefied complication, until the Ref. 3350 of 1989 — powered by the Calibre 558 — reintroduced the tourbillon as a modern Breguet wristwatch and helped spark the haute-horlogerie revival that followed. The 7357 is the direct descendant of that watch.

The Classique Tourbillon 7357 does not travel alone. To mark the 225th anniversary, Breguet unveiled a quartet of tourbillons spanning its core collections: the 35 mm Classique Tourbillon 7357 itself; the Classique Tourbillon Sidéral 7255, with a flying tourbillon and a mysterious display; the Tradition Tourbillon 7047, with its fusée-and-chain transmission; and the Marine Tourbillon Équation Marchante 5887, which combines a running equation of time with a celestial sky chart. Together they trace the breadth of Breguet's tourbillon craft, but it is the compact, permanent-collection 7357 that brings the anniversary closest to the wrist.