Description
Few watches can be said to cut no corners. Such is the case with the Breguet Marine Chronograph 5527. From the materials to the construction to functions and design, this is a watch that does not compromise. No surprise there, as Breguet has earned a reputation for exceeding quality standards and master craftsmanship.Â
The Breguet Marine Chronograph 5527 features some aspects familiar to most Breguet pieces and some wholly unique. Let’s start with the familiar. Like many Breguet pieces, the dial serves as a true centerpiece thanks to hand-engraved Guilloche pattern, courtesy of Breguet’s famous rose engines. These hand-operated devices have been operated for centuries at the hands of Breguet’s master watchmakers. Each dial is delicately held in place so the operator can use hand-controlled steel implements to ever-so delicately carve into the dial’s surface. And with each dial made from gold, the margin for error is vanishingly small. Once the painstaking engraving process is complete, the resultant dial is a wonder to behold, with the Marine line’s signature wave pattern, no two of which are quite the same.
What’s different about this watch is the way it blends the old with the new. Modern rubber compounds are used to craft a thick, vibrantly colored blue strap that affixes in a non-standard way to the watch’s muscular gold case. Here too, expectations are subverted. What might look like plain steel is actually 18kt white gold which explains the timepiece’s substantial heft. And where we’d normally look for classic Breguet hands, we find a variation on the theme – one that nods to the modern inspirations that went into designing the Marine Chronograph. Finally, the Roman Numerals of yesterday meet a more modern design language as seen by the stylized applied indices.
