Meeting Emmanuel Breguet, current guardian of the prestigious Breguet archives, offers an exclusive glimpse into the intriguing world of haute horlogerie and of Breguet.

Breguet had recently introduced the latest novelties from the legendary brand in Kuala Lumpur. During this period, our publication had the great opportunity to meet and interview Emmanuel Breguet, Vice President and Head of Patrimony of Montres Breguet. The following is a valuable transcript of our interesting and educational discussion.
<ul>
 <li>It's such a great pleasure and honour to meet you. How does it feel to be a direct descendant of the great Abraham Louis Breguet?</li>
</ul>
I'm very proud to be a descendant of Abraham Louis Breguet. And the more I study the art of Breguet, the more I feel I am modest compared to his achievements. And my only role today is to try to transmit his history, because I think it's an interesting history. It's a key era in watchmaking and we have the fantastic chance to access so many archives, so many documents and so many surviving works including watches and clocks.
<ul>
 <li>When was the first time you realized the importance of this legacy?</li>
</ul>
It wasn&rsquo;t during my childhood because my parents didn't speak a lot about the history of the family. And because during that time, in France, the name Breguet was more famous for airplanes than for watches. This was the actual situation in France during the 60s and 70s.
It was when I was a student in university that I realised the importance of the family and, especially of Abraham Louis Breguet and his son. At that time, I was studying the history of sciences and inventions. I had a meeting with a teacher who was a specialist of such history. And I asked him to offer me a suggestion for a subject of investigation for university work. He then asked me, what is my family name. And I had answered, my family name is Breguet. He said, you're looking for a subject of investigation! You can work on your family. Do you have some family archives? At this point, I realized the importance of our history and the great possibility of studying the history of the family. It was amazing.
<ul>
 <li>Can you elaborate to our readers your current roles in relation to the brand?</li>
</ul>
When I was appointed in a position in Breguet, this was a company sold by my family one century before my birth. It was a special situation. I was, at first, in the company to write a book. And my idea was to stay in the company for two years and after that, to do some other things; maybe become a teacher or a historian or even a writer. However, I stayed on after those two years and became a brand manager. Now, while I was the only historian in the company, I became experienced to the task of promoting and selling watches.
Sometimes I had some other missions, like to reintroduce Breguet in Russia at the end of the 1990s. In time, I gained the experience and knowledge to be the historian of the company, but also have the experience of selling. I knew it is good to have this experience and to not only be a person who is deep in the old papers. Now, my role in the company is to study the history of Breguet. I write articles and travel to transmit the beauty of Breguet. It is not only the beauty of the product, but also the history of how the Breguet name is still here and how Abraham Louis Breguet had incredible success in his life. Of course, I also have to investigate and find new things to talk about Breguet.
<ul>
 <li>Let&rsquo;s touch a little on the distribution network. In the early days, how far and wide were Breguet watches distributed?</li>
</ul>
During Abraham Louis Breguet&rsquo;s lifetime, his timepieces did not appear in the Far East. However, they were present in the United States. He had sold two or three pieces a year to some watchmakers in Boston and Philadelphia during the early 19th century. In terms of Asia, he established a kind of subsidiary in Istanbul. But he didn't sell watches in China, probably because the Breguet watches were too expensive and it was too complicated to send them so far. Much is still unknown but I love to investigate, not only about the technical inventions, but also about the reasons of success for Breguet and how his watches were distributed to so many countries during that period. It is fascinating and we cannot imagine how difficult it was. In fact, Breguet was probably one of the very first men to have a network of distribution in more than fifteen countries.

Precious Legacies

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