Having scheduled for Geneva in April and then cancelled, Watches & Wonders (W&W) then went online, and in a last minute decision, an actual fair in Shanghai’s West Bund Art Center. The surging demand for luxury watches in China as it emerges from the pandemic meant the inevitable success of W&W Shanghai – which our correspondent outlined earlier this week – which is why the fair is happening again in China, this time in the resort city of Sanya.

Opening barely a month after the close of the Shanghai event, W&W Sanya takes place from September 29 to October 31 in the massive CDF Mall – a full month inside the world’s largest duty-free shopping centre. Importantly, W&W Sanya is catered to the retail consumer instead of the traditional fair audience of watch retailers and journalists.

Shopping paradise

A city on the southernmost tip of Hainan island, which is known for its tropical weather and beaches, Sanya is the rapidly-growing capital of duty-free shopping in China. The Chinese government has announced plans to develop duty-free shopping on Hainan, which is already has already enjoyed a massive uptick. From the start of July to mid-August 2020, the CDF Mall recorded sales of over RMB5 billion, or over US$730 million, from over 740,000 customers.

Open to the public daily, W&W Sanya was conceived to cater to this demand. Eleven brands are taking part in the event in the CDF Mall, which, at 750,000 square feet or 72,000 square metres, is the world’s largest duty-free mall by some margin.

Nearly all the brands in W&W are owned by Richemont, including A. Lange & Söhne, IWC, and Cartier, except for Hermès. Three of the exhibiting brands, including Cartier and Hermès, already have stores inside the CDF Mall, while the others have individual booths.

The opening ceremony for W&W Sanya

But W&W Sanya is more than shopping on a large scale. The event includes horological activities like 90-minute movement assembly workshops led as well as watch talks by industry personalities and brand executives.

Additionally, most of the exhibiting brands also offer their own provide novel experiences, including IWC with its Cyberloupe, essentially a highly-magnified video exploration of a movement from a watchmaker’s point of view.

W&W Sanya takes place from September 29 to October 31, 2020, and is open daily from 10 am to 10 pm. For more, visit Watchesandwonders.com.

Having unveiled mostly simpler watches in the year so far, like the new Tradition with retrograde date, Breguet is now launching something big, both mechanically and literally. The Classique Double Tourbillon 5345 Quai de l’Horloge is, admittedly, a heavily fancied up variant of an existing model, but in typical Breguet style, it is executed to a high level of fit and finish.

Originally launched in 2006 as the ref. 5347 with a guilloche dial (and subsequently as the ref. 5349 set with diamonds), the Classique Double Tourbillon has been refined and elaborated upon. It now boasts a skeletonised dial with upgraded decoration, hand-engraved bridges, as well as a thinner case band, but the watch remains enormous.

Initial thoughts

The original Double Tourbillon was enormous – 44 mm by 17.05 mm – with a tall, bulbous bezel that made it look even thicker. Named after the located of the original Breguet workshops in Paris, the new Double Tourbillon 5345 addresses that as much as possible by narrowing the bezel case band as much as possible, and instead using an highly-domed sapphire crystal that’s almost half the total height. It’s still a very large watch, but it looks less voluminous and massive, especially with the open-worked dial.

The sapphire chapter ring for the hours and minutes that encircles the movement

Decoration and materials are top class. There is a lot of decoration, but it goes well together, unlike on the original model. The decor seemed incongruous on the original Double Tourbillon, which had a guilloche dial and hand-engraved meteorite motif movement.

The bridge for the going train on the back

Breguet has steadily refined its movement finishing in recent years, and it shows. The open barrels, for instance, have hand-finished bevels with sharp, inward corners, while the movement bridges are solid gold and intricately hand engraved.

Although the double, extra-large “B” monograms on each of the barrels are impressively finished, the look is excessive. The watch would do very well with less branding.

And the price tag of about US$680,000 is hefty, but within the ballpark for a watch like this, making it reasonable, at least relative to the competition.

Bevelling the “B” of the open barrel

The solid-gold main plate of the movement

Double, orbital tourbillons

The key feature of the movement is the pair of one-minute tourbillons on the dial. Each is driven independently by its own mainspring, but both are linked by a differential in the centre of the dial that averages out the rate of the two.

The two tourbillons, in turn, are mounted on a rotating dial plate that makes one revolution every 12 hours, which is why the elongated tourbillon bridge spanning both tourbillons also doubles as the hour hand.

Both mainsprings also drive the rotating dial plate, which is why the watch has three going trains and a total part count of 738.

Revealing the movement from all around, the sapphire crystal is almost as thick as the case middle and back

The decoration is extensive and numerous. Most of the movement components are finished by hand, particularly those visible on the front. Besides the hand-bevelled “B” barrels, the tourbillon bridge is black-polished steel with bevelled edges and bowl-shaped countersinks for the pivot jewels. And the hairsprings in each tourbillon – which are steel and not silicon – are formed by hand into a Breguet overcool.

The inner wall of the case is hand engraved with Roman numerals to enhance the open, airy face

The rotating plate of the dial is also the base plate of the movement, and is decorated with guilloche engraved by a hand-operated rose engine

All of the bridges on the back are solid gold, and engraved by hand to reproduce an 18th century print depicting 51, Quai de l’Horloge, where Abraham-Louis Breguet set up his workshop (although the building was renamed no. 39 in the 20th century). The engraving is complete with open windows on the building, as well as a lady looking out the window on the inset plate for the going train.

Key Facts and Price

Breguet Classique Complications Double Tourbillon 5345 ‘Quai de l’Horloge’
Ref.

Diameter: 46 mm
Thickness: 16.8 mm
Material: Platinum
Crystal: Sapphire
Water resistance: 30 m

Movement: Cal. 588N
Functions: Hours, minutes, and double, one-minute tourbillons on 12-hour rotating plate
Winding: Hand wind
Frequency: 18,000 beats per hour (2.5 Hz)
Power reserve: 50 hours

Strap: Rubber with slate stone upper with double-fold clasp

Availability: At Breguet boutiques starting October 2020
Price: 628,000 Swiss francs

For more information, visit Breguet.com.