I told Breguet how to fix the brand – then they invited me to tour their manufacture

Andrew McUtchen

My recent Breguet manufacture tour could have been a bit awkward. There are very few things in life more uncomfortable than having to confront your own public declarations of certainty. And there are even fewer things more uncomfortable than confronting them with the person you were criticising sitting right across the table from you. A couple of years ago, on About ‘Effing Time, I played a game. CEO for a day — any brand in the world, what would I do? I chose Breguet. And I let rip.

I said the brand that bears the name of the greatest watchmaker who ever lived — the man who gave us the overcoil, the tourbillon, the subscription movement, the Breguet hands, the Breguet numerals — had been left to stagnate under a regime of well-intentioned but suffocating reverence. I called for a 50% reduction in production. I demanded more hand finishing. I said they weren’t using the historical machines that their watchmaking lineage demanded. And I said, loudly, that the biggest problem of all was communication. What I did not anticipate was that video being seen by Breguet CEO Gregory Kissling. What I certainly did not anticipate was showing it to him myself.

So. Here we are. The first stop on what became one of the most singularly focused manufacture tours I’ve done in roughly 45 such visits was the engine-turning atelier. I had made a demand: I want to see historical machines actively used in production. What I found was, frankly, mortifying — in the best possible way. Over 30 rose engines, the largest concentration on the planet, all completely manual, the oldest dating to 1928 and approaching its centenary. No hum of computers. No buzz of modern machinery. Wooden and steel instruments operated by pure human force, the room carrying the particular silence of serious craft. They invited me to sit down at one.

I should disclose that I am, categorically, not good at anything horological. I have spent 15 years visiting manufactures and never once demonstrated aptitude for a single thing that happens inside them. Until this Breguet manufacture tour. Something about the requirement — rotate this wheel counterclockwise at an even pace, apply even pressure — turned out to map rather precisely onto the instincts of a musician or photographer. I’m claiming it. In fact, I’m told I’m in the top three visitors of the last 12 months on that machine. They may be gassing me up. I don’t care.

Our very own Marcus Flack, the most steadied professional I know, had to be physically removed from the machine. He described it as peeling an apple in one unbroken piece — the deep satisfaction of a ribbon of metal curling off in consistent thickness. This is, I would suggest, the most elegant summary of why Breguet’s engraving tradition matters. One other detail worth noting: nothing here is wasted. The precious metal shavings from every engraved dial fall into a small well below the machine. Every micron is recaptured and remelted. Nothing leaves that room that shouldn’t.

Tick. Item one: historical machines. Done.

Item two: hand finishing. I tried this too, briefly, before shearing off an entire edge with a coarse file and retiring with what dignity I had left. What I watched instead — a craftsman beveling a mainplate by feel, moving through progressively finer abrasives down to diamond paste, arriving at a black-polished inner angle that is, in real life, visible only under a microscope — is the kind of thing that resets your understanding of what a brand like Breguet actually is. Every single watch that leaves the manufacture has been through this process. Every one. So. Items one and two on my wish list already exist. They always did. Which brings me to item three. Communication. And this is where Gregory and I had the conversation that I think needed to happen.

Gregory Kissling is a particular kind of CEO. He came from Omega, where we shared several memories across a number of visits. He is open, direct, and refuses to be defensive about things that deserve directness. When I showed him the clip, his response wasn’t performance. It was genuine reflection. He acknowledged the communication gap without flinching from it. “Product is one thing,” he said, “but then you have to communicate.” The 250th anniversary tour — Paris to Paris, launching new watches in each city, deploying artisans to demonstrate the pantograph, the gear shagreen, the beveling — was the beginning of a concerted effort to bring the manufacture story out into the world. The work, he admits, continues. And the watches.

The 7725, with its magnetic pivot that tames rather than repels magnetism, achieving a daily precision of ±1 second — a factor of five improvement on chronometer certification.

The Tradition, that perpetual bridge between the pocket watch era and the wrist. The reissued tourbillon celebrating 225 years since the patent of 26 June 1801. And the one that I will be dreaming about: a new piece in a NAC-style coating with a fumé enamel dial graduating from black through to a deep mossy green behind Breguet numerals, sitting in my personal top five watches of 2026 from the moment I saw it. Kissling’s phrase — “we didn’t change anything, but we changed everything” — is either a corporate non-answer or a precise technical description of what it means to bring a 225-year-old movement tradition forward without vandalising it. Having seen the inside of 7357, I believe it’s the latter.

Gregory said something near the end of my Breguet manufacture tour, quietly and without theatre: “Breguet is back.” I felt it. And I suspect, if you spend any time at all with what this brand is doing right now — and what it has, it turns out, always been doing — you’ll feel it too.

Was I wrong? On two of three counts, resoundingly. On the third, I maintain my position. But the evidence on the table suggests the third is being very well addressed and we are already seeing strong results.

This is just a fraction of what I was able to explore. Make sure you watch the full video to see the whole adventure.