To break the mould is to do something in a completely new way. It broke the mould entirely.
The picture is of a casting mould smashed so nothing identical can follow. It is praise, and it is used most of people and designs rather than of policies.
1phrasebreak the mouldTo do something in a completely new way.
“The building did break the mould for a public library.”
break the mould is a phrase.
Also accepted in games: break the mold
break the mold comes from the use of molds to make multiple replicas of solid objects using moldable materials.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Idioms