Invented in 1790 by one of the greatest watchmakers to have ever lived, Abraham-Louis Breguet, the parachute shock setting became the first form of impact protection in watches. The name parachute, or pare-chute as it was originally known, was inspired by the experiments of Louis-Sébastien Lenormand who invented the modern parachute in France in 1783. Lenormand created the name from the Italian parare, meaning to guard or shield, and the French chute, meaning fall.
Paris-based Breguet was an avid scientist and engineer who keenly followed the latest technological developments. And so, when he invented the first method for breaking the fall of the balance staff which, with its delicate pivots measuring fractions of a millimetre across, make it the most susceptible to damage – he named in Lenormand’s honour.
The idea to recreate a parachute in one of our own watches came as we sought to find a kind of shock protection that we could make ourselves using our vintage and antique machines. This coincided with the moment this beautiful movement, made in Geneva in around 1810, arrived in our workshop in a bag of parts after its case had sadly been scrapped for gold. Its parachute shock setting became the foundation we used to reverse engineer and redesign our own version, which we first prototyped in our tailor-made pocket watch The Carter.
We were so happy with the design and look it gave to the watch that we quickly decided to use it in all of our 248 watches, starting with our first edition of five pieces, and we are now developing it further again for our second edition.
Scroll through the photographs below to see the process in action.
