{"id":3034,"date":"2021-02-17T17:30:40","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T16:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/?p=3034"},"modified":"2021-02-17T23:33:36","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T22:33:36","slug":"luxury-watchmaking-the-tradition-of-the-tourbillon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/luxury-watchmaking-the-tradition-of-the-tourbillon\/","title":{"rendered":"A brief history of luxury: The tradition of the tourbillon in haute horlogerie"},"content":{"rendered":"

The watchmaking complication of the tourbillon, also known as the rotating cage, has fascinated luxury watchmaking for nearly 220 years and is now considered a watchmaking tradition. Focus on the ingredients that have made the success of this device, and its evolution.<\/p>\n

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The tourbillon<\/strong> was invented in 1801 by the French watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet<\/strong>, a watchmaker for French royalty who founded the House of Breguet<\/strong> in 1775. The company was a great success and attracted the most illustrious French personalities, including Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, the Duke of Orleans, Napoleon, Queen Victoria, and Winston Churchill.<\/p>\n

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The watchmaking complication<\/strong> of the tourbillon<\/strong> came into being as Abraham-Louis Breguet<\/strong> sought to perfect his watches and in particular to solve the problem of the earth’s gravity on watch movements. Thus, the tourbillon<\/strong> makes it possible to delay or accelerate the dis-equilibrium effect that affects the movement of watches. The device acts in such a way as to compensate for the differences induced by gravity with the changes in wrist positions. His invention, which will still mark the watchmaking<\/strong> world 220 years later, was only unveiled to the public in 1806.<\/p>\n

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The revolving cage invented by the House of Breguet<\/strong> evolved with the times, and some models even feature tourbillons<\/strong> on several axes or even several tourbillons. This hypnotizing mechanism can be installed on men’s watches, such as the Breguet, Jaeger-LeCoultre, and Audemars Piguet models, as well as on women’s watches, like Bulgari’s Serpenti Seduttori model.<\/p>\n

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Breguet’s classic tourbillon<\/h2>\n

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\"\"Breguet Classic Tourbillon Extra-Flat Skeleton 5395 \u00a9 Press<\/h6>\n

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The first rotating cage, that of Abraham-Louis Breguet<\/strong>, whose idea came to him during a trip to Switzerland, was patented for 10 years and revolutionized the watchmaking world of the time. After 10 years, many major manufacturers appropriated the tourbillon<\/strong> and reinvented it in their own way, without however depriving its creator of his letters of nobility.<\/p>\n

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The physicist Abraham-Louis Breguet<\/strong> left his mark on luxury watchmaking, notably by making the first luxury wristwatch for the Queen Consort of Naples, Caroline Murat<\/strong>. He was also at the origin of models that allowed the time to be read by touch.<\/p>\n

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The tourbillon reinvented by Purnell<\/h2>\n
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\"\"Purnell’s Escape IIS Treasure watch. \u00a9 Press<\/h6>\n

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Since its invention, many variations of the tourbillon have been created. These include the Gyrotourbillon by Jaeger-leCoultre, the Quadruple Tourbillon by Greubel Forsey, and the Tri-axial Tourbillon by Thomas Prescher. However, one manufacturer, new at the time, managed to reappropriate the tourbillon better than the others: the Purnell<\/strong> company.<\/p>\n

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In 2017, then under the leadership of CEO Maurizio Mazzocchi<\/strong>, Purnell<\/strong> developed an alternative to the tourbillon, the spherion<\/strong>. Designed in collaboration with master watchmaker Eric Coudray<\/strong> and the Tec-Ebauches company, this spherion<\/strong> works like a tourbillon<\/strong>, turning on three axes. This new model would be three times faster than the others, and would also exist in “double-spherion<\/strong>“, an exclusive from the Purnell<\/strong> company.<\/p>\n

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Read also > FASHION HISTORY: THE CHANEL JACKET, THE HOUSE\u2019S ICONIC DESIGN FOR 100 YEARS<\/a><\/p>\n

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Featured photo: \u00a9 Press<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The watchmaking complication of the tourbillon, also known as the rotating cage, has fascinated luxury watchmaking for nearly 220 years and is now considered a watchmaking tradition. Focus on the ingredients that have made the success of this device, and its evolution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":" %%post_title%% %%sep%% %%sitetitle%%","_seopress_titles_desc":"Focus on the ingredients that have made the success of this device, and its evolution.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":301,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"Watches,luxury watches,tourbillon,spherion,Breguet,Purnell,watch complications","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[69,65,63,57,62,58,64,53,59],"class_list":["post-3034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trends","tag-art-urbain-en","tag-capsule","tag-collaboration","tag-collaborations-en","tag-fashion","tag-histoire-en","tag-history","tag-mode-en","tag-serie-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}