You know you've made it

Advertisement on the back cover of The New Yorker, December 15, 2008

I've never read Pushkin, but this ad caught my eye. His novel in verse, "Eugene Onegin", was published in serial form between 1825 and 1832.

The fact that the Bregeut brand name was so iconic that Pushkin could use it without having to remind his readers that it was a brand of watch is telling. But Pushkin is not the only author who has referred to the brand in their writing. Stendhal, Mérimée, Balzac, Alexandre Dumas, Thackeray and Victor Hugo have all included references to the brand in their books.

Of course the flip side of this level of reputation is that the brand could become a generic term for the category, as Hoover has for vacuum cleaners in the United Kingdom.

But given the price range of Breguet watches and the age of the brand, I don't think that anyone will be using the brand name quite that loosely any time soon.