It was a jewel of an evening with a timeless quality befitting the occasion. After an extensive renovation to its Rodeo Drive store, the legendary watch brand Breguet celebrated its grand reopening with a festive cocktail party outdoors on Via Rodeo.
A swath of blue carpet rolled across the cobblestones to the doors of the luxury watchmaker, which dates back to 1775, blue being a nod to the distinctive color of its timepieces’ minute and hour hands.
The October 3 celebration got rolling with the blue ribbon cutting to the revamped store, which opened in 2006 as Breguet’s second American standalone boutique, with the other on New York’s Madison Avenue.
The remodeled boutique features interior details like decorative frosted glass and oversize gear displays and a pair of the signature blue Breguet watch hands.
In addition to the interior renovations, a specialty clock was installed on the façade of the building. The clock is a replica of the Classique Tourbillon model 3357 which is based on the original Tourbillon design.
The founder of the brand, Abraham-Louis Breguet, got a patent in 1801 for inventing the Tourbillion, a mechanism designed to counteract the effects of gravity and therefore increase the accuracy of mechanical watches, which at the time, were pocket watches.
Guests got an eyeful of the contemporary versions of the beautiful watches, whose prices start at close to $9,000.
The celebration on the street was amplified by String Theory, a collaborative ensemble of musicians and dancers that utilize invented instruments and sonic sculpture to create their unique performance landscape and sonic footprint.
String Theory is known for large-scale performance installations that transform environments and architecture into giant musical instruments. At this event, they turned Via Rodeo into an outdoor instrument by hoisting musical strings from the sidewalk to the rooftops of the boutiques creating an oversized aerial violin.
Hosted by Rodolphe Schulthess, VP of Global Sales; Michael Nelson, US Brand Manager and Frank Furlan, President, Swatch Group US, the evening also served to introduce “Breguet the Innovator. Inventor of the Tourbillon,” a global exhibition of priceless, historic timepieces that will be on display at the Rodeo Drive boutique through October 19.
