Tennis player Gaël Monfils spotted wearing a Breguet

Gaël Monfils, one of professional tennis's most athletically gifted and style-conscious personalities, was recently spotted wearing a Breguet Classique 5177 — a watch that sits at the philosophical heart of what the Vallée de Joux manufacture has always stood for: restrained elegance backed by serious mechanical credentials.

The Breguet Classique 5177 is presented in a 38mm yellow gold case with the brand's distinctive coin-edge finish on the case flank — a detail lifted directly from Abraham-Louis Breguet's original pocket watch vocabulary. The dial is a masterclass in traditional decoration: hand-engraved guilloché in a barleycorn or wave pattern executed on a rose engine, with a subsidiary seconds register at six o'clock. Blued steel Breguet hands — the open-tipped pomme style that the founder himself invented — complete a composition that has changed almost nothing in 250 years, because it has needed to change nothing.

Powering the 5177 is the manufacture calibre 502.3, a manually wound movement measuring a remarkable 2.4mm in thickness. It offers a power reserve of approximately 60 hours and beats at 3Hz (21,600 vph). The bridges are finished with Côtes de Genève, the bevelled edges hand-polished, and the mainplate decorated with perlage — a level of finishing entirely invisible from the caseback in some configurations, which speaks to Breguet's commitment to craft for its own sake.

Among serious collectors, the Classique 5177 occupies a specific and respected niche: it is not an entry-level Breguet, but it is also not an overtly complicated one. Its value lies in movement architecture and finishing quality rather than complication count — a philosophy that appeals to connoisseurs who understand that thinness and decoration are technically demanding disciplines in their own right. The reference consistently holds steady on the secondary market precisely because its appeal is timeless rather than trend-driven.

Monfils, who has previously been seen wearing high-complication and sportier references, choosing the sober Classique 5177 is a telling wardrobe moment. It signals maturity in his collecting trajectory. At retail, yellow gold configurations of the 5177 are priced north of $20,000, with grey-market values tracking closely to list given stable demand.