Seven and a half millimetres of good manners
By Julien Moreau, Geneva ยท
Early in my saleroom years a senior specialist handed me a Breguet pocket watch and asked me to describe the hands. I said moon-tipped. He took the watch back and said, very gently, 'Breguet hands, young man. He got there first.' I have never called them anything else since.
The 5177 is the cleanest place to see them today: blued steel over a white enamel dial with Breguet's own slanted numerals, in a white gold case just 38 mm wide and 7.45 mm thick, with that coin-edge fluting running round the caseband. Under a double cuff it disappears entirely, which is exactly what a dress watch ought to do. The 777Q inside gives you 55 hours, more than enough for something that will spend its weekdays in a drawer and its Saturdays at weddings.
The one thing I would remove, if anyone let me near it with a loupe and a grudge, is the date at three. On a dial this calm it reads like a coffee ring on a white tablecloth. Thirty metres of water resistance also means you should take it off before washing up, though I doubt the owners of this watch do much washing up.
At twenty-five to twenty-seven thousand dollars it undercuts a Patek Calatrava in gold by a comfortable margin, and to my eye the enamel is the more beautiful thing. Buy it if you wear shirts with real cuffs. If your idea of formal is a polo shirt, look elsewhere.