| |
Among Breguet's inventions was the tourbillon, which compensates for the slight differences in timing a watch records when held in different positions. The tourbillon remains a much-coveted feature on expensive mechanical watches today. He also invented a watch that ran without winding for 60 hours. The perpetual calendar, so named because it automatically adjusts for the number of days in the month and for leap years, was another Breguet invention. It, like the tourbillon, is a sought-after feature on modern watches.
Thanks to a shockproofing device Breguet developed, the timepieces made in his 100-man workshop were more durable and reliable than any had been before. (The nearly 300 years that had passed since the Nuremberg eggs, whose fragility made the name doubly apt, had done little to make watches sturdier.) They also looked completely different from the elaborately decorated rococo styles that had been in vogue. Breguet's watches had slim, graceful cases and simple faces. An engraving process called "engine turning," yet another Breguet invention, gave the dials a rich, satiny finish. Even the watches' hands were stand-outs, bearing elegantly tapered tips embellished, for greater visibility, with small open circles. Watch designers today still use "Breguet" hands to impart a look of elegance.
Breguet's life bridged two eras in watch history. The first was one of hand craftsmanship catering to the wealthy few, an age Breguet epitomized with his exquisite, custom-made pieces. The second, already underway when Breguet died, would be increasingly dominated by mass production and mass demand, the hallmarks of the industrial Revolution.
The swelling urban population needed watches to keep the machinery of the burgeoning factories, and of city life in general, running smoothly. In 1825 came a dramatic event that accelerated the growth in demand for watches: The world's first steam-operated freight and passenger railroad went into operation in England. Rail transport soon spread throughout Europe and America, and with it a need for portable timepieces.
The railway, in turn, led to the institution of standard time zones, first in the U.S. (in 1883) and then throughout the world. (Prior to that, there were nearly 300 local times in this country alone.) That made watches all the more desirable, since they now told the wearer not just the time at home but everywhere else in the world. World watch production increased by nearly 10 times to 2.5 million between 1800 and 1875.
About two-thirds of those watches were made in Switzerland, which in the late 18th century unseated England as king of the watchmaking world.
In the 19th century came the introduction of standardized, machine made parts in watch factories in Switzerland and the United States. The American company Waltham Watch Co. was an early pioneer of machine production. it and other U.S. companies produced timepieces of unsurpassed quality, and were the reason for America's brief shining moment in watch history in the latter half of the l9th century. For a few years, American watchmaking was the envy of the expert Swiss.
It was the latter, though, who prevailed. Good as the Americans were at mastering machine production, the Swiss were better, with more versatile factories making a broader range of watches.
|
|