As Roger Dubuis celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, the Genevan watchmaker is turning back the clock to revisit its very beginnings. In 1995, master watchmaker Roger Dubuis sought a partnership with designer Carlos Dias after Dubuis’s illustrious career at Patek Philippe. With Dubuis’s technical expertise and Dias’s bold creative vision, Roger Dubuis was set up with avant-garde designs and horological complexity. Their first timepiece featured the signature Biretrograde display that Dubuis had co-patented years earlier. 

That particular mechanical spectacle takes center stage in two of Roger Dubuis’ champion novelties: Excalibur Grande Complication and Excalibur Biretrograde Calendar.

Excalibur Grande Complication

While there is no known hard rule, a watch is conferred the “Grande Complication” title upon incorporating at least three additional functions beyond basic timekeeping. The new Excalibur Grande Complication, which follows the legacy of Roger Dubuis’ first in-house Grande Complication caliber from 2009, thus features the following three: a flying tourbillon, a minute repeater, and a perpetual calendar, the latter being the late Dubuis’ favorite. 

Besides the month and leap year indicator, the date and day-of-the-week displays are presented in separate retrograde scales — a system Roger co-patented with Jean-Marc Wiederrect in the 1980s. A retrograde display in itself could be described as a theatrical complication. Unlike a traditional hand that rotates continuously, retrograde hands travel along an arc and, upon reaching the end of their scale, instantly snap back to their starting position to begin anew. 

The “bi” in biretrograde means there are two such displays working in harmony, in this case, one for the day of the week and another for the date. Here, the skeletonized hands trace the days-of-the-week from top to bottom, with the date in the inverse direction, each one instantly jumping back to zero at the end of their cycle.

The minute repeater is operated at the push of a button at 10 o’clock. The watch chimes the hours, quarters, and minutes, reverberating a “tritone chime”, also known as the “devil’s chord” or “diabolus in musica”. (Its name is derived from the time this dissonant interval was actually forbidden in medieval religious compositions for its unsettling sound but has since become foundational to blues music.) The watch rings low for hours, high for minutes, and two tones for the quarter hours.

Completing the trinity is a flying tourbillon, positioned between 5 and 6 o’clock, fronting its signature look in the mirror-polished Celtic Cross cage. 

The new Calibre RD118 consists of 684 components, each one meticulously hand-decorated to achieve the prestigious Poinçon de Genève certification. The level of finishing here is clearly at a level of mastery. Every bridge, plate, and component, even those out of sight, must be decorated to exacting standards. A transparent sapphire crystal caseback offers an unrestricted view of the self-winding movement, executed in impeccable symmetry. Two hammers and the mainspring take up the post at 12 o’clock, tourbillon at 6, and two micro-rotors sit on either side, providing an autonomy of up to 60 hours. The bridges show off classical Côtes de Genève, along with anglage, inward angles, and mirror-polished screws.

Evidently the watch wears large at 45mm, crafted from pink gold and paired with an interchangeable 3D brown calfskin leather strap featuring a pink gold pin buckle. The Excalibur Grande Complication will be limited to just eight pieces worldwide. 

Tech Specs: Roger Dubuis Excalibur Grande Complication

Movement: Self-winding Manufacture Calibre RD118; 60-hour power reserve
Functions: Hours and minutes; tourbillon; minute repeater; perpetual calendar; biretrograde scales (date and day-of-the-week)
Case: 45mm; rose gold; water-resistant to 50m
Dial: Skeletonized
Strap: Interchangeable brown calfskin leather strap with pink gold pin buckle
Availability: Limited to 8 pieces; boutique-exclusive

Excalibur Biretrograde Calendar

Presented in the new Excalibur Biretrograde Calendar, the watch pays homage to Dubuis’s and Dias’s first creation released in 1996, a biretrograde display paired with a chronograph. 

Similar to the day and date scales in the Excalibur Grande Complication, the calendar display is executed in the same way, albeit on a more simplified canvas of silver and mother-of-pearl, with subsidiary seconds at 6 o’clock. The scales are designed with deliberate asymmetry mirroring the 1996 Sympathie — wider on the outside, narrowing toward the center — creating a uniquely expressive curvature. 

At 40mm, the new Excalibur Biretrograde Calendar returns to the more refined case sizes typical of Roger Dubuis’ earliest creations, before the oversized watch trend took hold. Crafted in 18K pink gold with a white mother-of-pearl dial, a combination that’s reminiscent of Roger Dubuis being among the first watchmakers in the early 2000s to introduce pink gold and mother-of-pearl in gentlemen’s watches. 

The sapphire crystal caseback displays the self-winding Calibre RD840, along with an additional feature — a ring bearing an engraved quote as a lasting tribute to the Roger Dubuis co-founders, saying: “C’est une montre actuelle, inspirée mais pas soumise au passé, qui se projette dans un futur qui nous appartient.”

In English: “This is a watch of today, inspired but not restricted to the past, projected into a future that belongs to us.”

Again, the prestigious Poinçon de Genève certification is reflected in each component that has been decorated and polished by hand.

Tech Specs: Roger Dubuis Excalibur Biretrograde Calendar

Reference: Ref. RDDBEX1179
Movement: Self-winding Manufacture Calibre RD840; 60-hour power reserve
Functions: Hours and minutes; small seconds; biretrograde scales (date and day-of-the-week)
Case: 40mm; rose gold; water-resistant to 100m
Dial: Silver-plated, satin-brushed dial; mother-of-pearl inserts at 12 & 6’ o clock
Strap: Interchangeable brown calfskin leather strap with pink gold pin buckle