The new Breguet Reine de Naples 8918 takes on a soft touch
After several black and white versions, the Reine de Naples now comes in a pink shade. This new timepiece boasts a feminine and refined visual harmony with its rose gold case, its bezel and flange set with 117 diamonds and its crown, which also features a diamond. The dial is light pink and is made of “Grand feu” enamel in line with true watchmaking tradition. The off-centre hour circle features a pear-shaped diamond at 6 o’clock, adding elegance to the timepiece. As for the secret signature, it is subtly outlined between the centre of the dial and 3 o’clock.
The 537/3 self-winding movement of the Breguet Reine de Naples 8918 beats at a frequency of 3.5 hertz. It is water-resistant up to 30 metres and has a power reserve of 45 hours. The mechanism, which is visible on the back of the watch, is equipped with a silicon escapement and a platinum oscillating weight hand-engraved by the Manufacture’s craftsmen.
Finally, the buckle of the pale pink calfskin strap is set with 28 diamonds.
This new model reaffirms the legendary Reine de Naples collection as a symbol of timeless elegance.
The Breguet “Queen of Naples” collection of watches was born from a connection between a client and a watchmaker. The watchmaker was Abraham Louis Breguet, and the client was Caroline Murat, née Bonaparte, who was Queen Consort Of Naples from 1808 to 1815. Caroline Murat was an enthusiastic collector of Breguet timepieces and during her lifetime would own more than thirty of them, including a unique, oval-shaped wristwatch which included a repeating mechanism as well as a thermometer.
That watch was the basis for the introduction of the Breguet Reine de Naples collection in 2002, and since then, various models have been created in a plethora of shapes and designs, all of which remain grounded in the unusual oval form of the original. Today, Breguet has released the latest Breguet Reine de Naples 8918 timepiece in an 18k white-gold case, with the manufacture Breguet caliber
537/3 and, most notably, a very elegantly executed dial in grand feu enamel, which is a first for the Reine de Naples collection.
The Queen Of Naples watch is very solidly grounded in traditional notions of what constitutes a ladies’ watch and what constitutes an expression of femininity in general, which is something that can be seen, nowadays, as slightly reactionary. However, I think there is certainly still room for such a notion in watchmaking. For all that, it is also true that gendering a watch in a way that restricts anyone from wearing it seems inadvisable today more than ever. That said, I have always found the Reine de Naples an extremely successful example of the genre, especially inasmuch as it has assumed its identity as a traditional, elegant ladies’ dress watch from the outset (it is manifestly not an example of “shrinking and pinking” a stereotypical men’s watch).