These pocket watches, dubbed “Souscription” watches, required clients to place a 25 per cent deposit up front. This allowed Breguet to purchase materials and pay his artisans ahead of time, creating a more sustainable business model. He then promoted them using advertising pamphlets — arguably the first example of watch marketing — simultaneously democratising fine watchmaking and expanding his client base. By producing approximately 700 pieces across three decades, Breguet effectively established serial production, which was virtually unheard of in watchmaking at the time.
Now that his eponymous brand has arrived at a momentous 250 years of operation, it is fitting that the anniversary model would be based on a Souscription pocket watch. The Classique Souscription 2025 is named plainly, but the watch itself is anything but. Downsized from a pocket watch to a modern 40mm wristwatch with a svelte 10.8mm profile, his wristwatch eschews the traditional Classique hallmarks of coin-edge fluted case bands and rectilinear soldered lugs. Instead, it features gracefully integrated curved lugs, a satin-finished case middle, a polished domed bezel, and a flatter "cheve" sapphire crystal— another Breguet innovation that emerged during an era when highly domed crystals were in vogue.
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