How do you make a turning-platform double tourbillon “better?” That’s a tough question. Adding a huge solid-gold dragon seems to have done the trick, though, as the Breguet Classique Double Tourbillon Dragon 5345 watch illustrates. Not to mention that there certainly is something fun to the concept of spending $767,800 on a watch with a functions list of just two items: hours and minutes.
I was but a novice watch enthusiast with very little in the way of in-depth knowledge of fine watchmaking when I first discovered this double tourbillon movement that Breguet introduced in 2006. I couldn’t wrap my head around there being two mechanically connected tourbillons with an hour hand on top — I just couldn’t imagine the entire watch movement slowly rotating and hence moving the hour hand. Mind you, YouTube barely was a thing and social media (thankfully) did not yet exist, so finding videos showing such extremely rare watches in operation was basically impossible.
Many years later, I was fortunate enough to encounter one of these Breguet Classique Double Tourbillon watches, albeit one without a dragon, and it was as breathtakingly impressive and awesome as I had imagined it. And then some. This is to say that, yes, the 749-component Breguet Calibre 588N1 operates with a huge and heavy rotating platform, on which there are the two tourbillons, two hands, and now a massive and heavy dragon. How this hand-wound movement has so much grunt is difficult to comprehend, but apparently, it does, powering the rotating double tourbillon assembly at a 2.5 Hertz frequency for 60 hours.
A closer look reveals a stunning symmetry to the Breguet 588N1 watch movement. This symmetry is also key to the inner workings of the Breguet Classique Double Tourbillon Dragon 5345 watch, as it pairs each of its tourbillons with their own power source and gear train, meaning they operate independently from each other. You’ll spot the two mainspring barrels (the power sources) under the dragon, one right under the mother-of-pearl it is clutching with its front feet, while the other is just under its rear feet, where its tail curls back and under itself. The two timing mechanisms are connected by a differential that helps average out their differences in accuracy and allows what are essentially two separate movements to drive just one set of hands. If this doesn’t get a watch enthusiast’s blood flowing, you might need an Apple Watch to check your heart rate.
Another interesting fact is that the Breguet Classique Double Tourbillon Dragon 5345 watch is among the most expensive and most complicated luxury timepieces that offer no extra functionality beyond the bare minimum of hours and minutes. The movement has a shockingly high component count of 749, with 81 jewels, making it an amusing exercise to try and find other so-called time-only watches that require more parts to offer just these two indications. All the movement’s plates are believed to be in solid 18k gold, too, decorated by hand and then rhodium-plated — although the unusual patterns on the back are really quite challenging to make out.
Despite the limited functionality, it certainly isn’t as if its wearer could feel short-changed. The hours and minutes are displayed on what appears to be a floating sapphire crystal disc, first laser-etched and then black-varnished, and in case one wanted their dragon to be unique, Breguet offers a customization program where not only its color but even its shape can be personalized. Given the massive and massively complicated all-gold movement and all-gold dragon, we can already guess that the Breguet Classique Double Tourbillon Dragon 5345 watch is no lightweight in the world of haute horlogerie, but all those are framed in a solid 950 platinum case that measures a whopping 46mm wide and 16.8mm thick. Breguet does not mention water resistance — and that’s probably not just to protect the watch but also because all those precious metals would likely drag you down to the bottom of the ocean.
An absolute beast of a watch, the Breguet Classique Double Tourbillon Dragon 5345 comes at a beast of a price: USD 767,800. Some 15 years after I first saw it, the Breguet Double Tourbillon remains one heck of a concept that rightfully serves as a flagship model for the brand. You can learn more at the brand’s website.
