A matter of great complexity

While any self-respecting watchmaker today would feel a pinch of shame at not having a tourbillon in its collections, this hasn’t always been the case. For many decades, the invention which Abraham-Louis Breguet patented in 1801 was considered the summit of the watchmaker’s art, because of its complexity, and few possessed the technical wherewithal to produce a tourbillon on anything approaching an industrial scale.

As Breguet, a Swatch Group brand, explains, “this new type of regulator was developed in response to a longstanding problem: how gravity exercises a detrimental effect on the regularity of a movement by generating variations in rate. Breguet understood that in order to reduce such errors, he would need to install the entire escapement within a mobile carriage that would perform a complete rotation, generally in one, four or six minutes. The regular repetition of the variations would allow them to compensate for each other. This supremely ingenious invention turned out to be exceedingly difficult to produce, and of all Breguet’s brilliant ideas was undoubtedly the toughest to implement.” The challenges facing watchmakers then were the same as now, that is to build a tourbillon that would be robust but would not exceed one gram in weight – any heavier and it would induce errors rather than eliminate them – and to finish the more than seventy tiny parts that must mesh together with absolute precision.

Making a point

Leaving aside the question of whether this type of regulator – of undisputed benefit in the days of the pocket watch – makes any significant contribution to today’s wristwatches, there is no getting away from the fact that tourbillons are everywhere, or almost. The only firms to balk at the exercise are those for which this particular feat of mechanics makes no sense, for the most part those whose timepieces aspire to a life of adventure, such as Rolex and Tudor, as well as Omega and Breitling which despite producing tourbillons in the past no longer do so. Some have even had the incongruous idea to put a tourbillon inside a dive watch, as Blancpain did with its Fifty Fathoms, or Panerai and its Luminor 1950 also with second time zone.

Clearly the tourbillon has become a technical sine qua non, a rite of passage into the circle of those who understand what mechanical watchmaking truly means. For brands that are better known for the drape of a haute couture gown or sparkling jewellery compositions, it is nothing less than their credibility in time measurement which is at stake. Chanel, for example, this year presents a Première Openwork Flying Tourbillon Camellia and a J12 Skeleton Flying Tourbillon, its way of saying in no uncertain terms that the brand is now a name to be reckoned with in complications. Those watchmakers that dare to “strip” the tourbillon of any companion complications do so either for its vintage charm, such as Chopard and its L.U.C 1963 Tourbillon, or to develop a new interpretation of this regulating organ, along the lines of Ulysse Nardin whose Ulysse Anchor Tourbillon includes a silicon constant-force escapement that breaks with the traditional approach to watchmaking by using flexible blade springs.

A pretender to the throne

Watchmakers make these emphatic demonstrations as a means of distinguishing themselves. As though the tourbillon were now the foundation on which to build a true complication watch. Many of those that made their way to Baselworld command respect. The Venturer Tourbillon from H. Moser & Cie is joined by a second time zone. A five-day power reserve boosts the Big Bang Tourbillon, released to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Hublot’s hallmark design. Blancpain again combines its tourbillon with a karrusel in the L-evolution range, as does Harry Winston whose Histoire de Tourbillon 6 has a more complex movement than any of its predecessors: it assembles two independent time displays, one regulated by a triaxial tourbillon and the other by a karrusel.

Another complication is nonetheless making its bid for the tourbillon’s crown. The minute repeater, because it enumerates time with the added dimension of sound, is taking the place of the tourbillon in the hearts of watchmakers whose days revolve around labyrinthine mechanics. Placing one and the other together inside the same case is tantamount to putting king and heir on the same throne. Those that carry off this ultimate combination join the distinguished company of Breguet with its Tradition Minute Repeater Tourbillon 7087, Bulgari and its Carillon Tourbillon, or Girard-Perregaux with its Minute Repeater Tourbillon with Gold Bridges. Having suffered the insult of no longer serving any useful function, is the tourbillon finding new purpose as a way for watchmakers to shine?