Latest news with #RogerDubuisExcaliburGrandeComplication
Forbes
3 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Roger Dubuis Opens Boutique At Birks Vancouver, Canada
The new Roger Dubuis boutique at Maison Birks Vancouver. Niche watchmaker Roger Dubuis, a producer of limited-edition complicated watches, particularly tourbillons, has opened a boutique at the Maison Birks flagship store in Vancouver, Canada. It takes its place among other exclusive brand boutiques in the flagship store, including Chaumet, Roberto Coin, Longines and Baume & Mercier. Roger Dubuis is unique in that every watch it makes is finished to Geneva Seal standards, an exacting process that requires every component of the watch, including every piece of the movement, to be finished to perfection. This, coupled with the fact that the brand specializes in tourbillons, positions Roger Dubuis in a six-figure price category. With production of no more than a few thousand watches per year. Models are made in limited editions of 8, 28 or 88 pieces. The astral motif figures prominently in the Roger Dubuis boutique at Maison Birks Vancouver. The store design reflects the brand, with a combination of traditional and natural materials and dynamic red accents, including an immense astral symbol, a motif of the brand, reflecting the shape of the openworked bridges on some models. Concrete elements are juxtaposed with polished marble, and aluminum appears alongside varnished wood. This coincides with Roger Dubuis watch design, which combines very traditional watch movements, but presents them in modern designs, usually skeletonized, with modern materials such as carbon fiber, titanium and DLC. The latest piece is the Excalibur Grande Complication, which includes a bi-retrograde display, reflecting the first watch Roger Dubuis produced when he started his brand in 1995. It has a flying tourbillon escapement and a minute repeater, and the dial is open in order to demonstrate its high-watchmaking finish – with brushed surfaces, polished chamfers and coin rentrants, which means that inner angles of the bridges are beveled and polished to perfection, a task that takes years of training. Flip the watch over, where the finish is just as perfect, and you can see the gong and hammers of the minute repeater. It will be made in a limited edition of eight pieces and is prced $691,000. The Roger Dubuis Excalibur Grande Complication. 'Maison Birks downtown Vancouver is an esteemed watchmaking institution,' says Laurent Toinet, president of Roger Dubuis North America. 'We're delighted to take our place within this famous store and present our own unique sense of expressive luxury.'
Forbes
21-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Roger Dubuis And Patek Philippe:A Tale Of Two Grand Complications
Patek Philippe Ref. 5308G Quadruple Complication. A grand complication is the Triathlete of the watch world. To qualify, it must achieve three major feats of watchmaking all in one package. That means it should have a minute repeater, a perpetual calendar and either a chronograph or a tourbillon. Combining these functions in one super watch is a longstanding tradition in the world of high horology. Two examples of a grand complication, both introduced at Watches and Wonders earlier this month, demonstrate how modern design codes are changing a genre that has been around for more than a century. Roger Dubuis's Excalibur Grand Complication and Patek Philippe's Ref. 5308G perform similar functions, and both are contemporary expressions of the grand comp, but the similarity ends there. Patek Philippe Ref. 5308G Quadruple Complication. Aside from timekeeping, Patek Philippe Ref. 5308G has a minute repeater, a split seconds chronograph and a perpetual calendar. Patek Philippe is famous for all three complications, particularly chronograph/perpetual calendar combinations. The dial architecture of the iconic Patek Philippe chronograph/perpetual calendar was established in 1941 with the famous Ref. 1518, (versions of which now cost seven and eight figures at auction). It stayed much the same right up to its current perpetual calendar/chronograph model, the Ref. 5720, and most examples by other brands followed the traditional layout it established: day and month appear lined up side by side in windows at the top of the dial. Subdials at 9 and 3 provide chronograph hour and minute counters, and the date index surrounds the moonphase at 6. The Patek Philippe Ref. 1518 set the design code for a perpetual calendar/chronograph. The 5308G is not that. It modernizes the way we read those functions, with day, date and month set in windows that form an arc at the top of the dial. The chronograph minutes and hour counters occupy the 3 and 9 positions, but in reverse, and with a modern font, and the ice blue dial gives it a pure 2025 vibe. The dial color is the year's strongest trend in luxury watches. The 5308G also has a state-of-the-art movement with several patents, and because it adds a split seconds function to the chronograph, Patek counts that as a fourth complication, referring to it as a Quadruple Complication. It is not limited, but it is expensive, with a price tag (in Swiss francs) of CHF 1,050,000. Roger Dubuis Excalibur Grande Complication. The Roger Dubuis is another version of a grand complication that is even more aggressively modern, but also steeped in tradition. The first watch Roger Dubuis produced when he started his brand in 1995 was a a bi-retrograde perpetual calendar, the first time anyone had designed a perpetual calendar that way. The new Roger Dubuis Excalibur Grande Complication revives the signature bi-retrograde display and adds a flying tourbillon and a minute repeater for a full-on high-watchmaking spectacle. Roger Dubuis Excalibur Grande Complication. The day appears on the retrograde index at left, and the date unfurls on the right side of the dial, with month on a disk at 12 o'clock and the flying tourbillon taking position at six. The dial is openworked, not just because of the modern aesthetic, but to demonstrate its high-watchmaking finish. It is made to Geneva Seal standards, which means every inch of it is finished and decorated in some way – with brushed surfaces, polished chamfers and something called coin rentrant, which means that inner angles of the bridges are beveled and polished to perfection, a task that takes years of training. Flip the watch over, where the finish is just as perfect, and you can see the gong and hammers of the minute repeater. Caseback of the Roger Dubuis Excalibur Grande Complication. Despite these very traditional nuances, the Excalibur Grande Complication has a completely modern look, with its crenelated bezel, triple lugs, skeleton hands and edgy rose gold and black color scheme. It will be made in a limited edition of eight pieces, priced at $691,000.
Forbes
01-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Roger Dubuis Unveils The Excalibur Grande Complication
The Roger Dubuis Excalibur Grande Complication To honor the 30-anniversary of the Roger Dubuis watch brand, the company unveiled the Excalibur Grande Complication with three complications and a biretrograde signature all stamped by Poinçon de Genève certification. The watch is limited to eight pieces and was unveiled Tuesday at the opening of the 2025 Watches and Wonders watch fair in Geneva. Watchmaker Roger Dubuis (1938 – 2017) and watch designer, Carlos Dias, founded the Roger Dubuis watch manufacturer in 1995 and introduced its first timepieces four years later. The company is known for producing nearly all the components for its highly complicated timepieces in house. It specializes in complex tourbillons and skeletonized movements housed in watches with avant-garde contemporary designs. Since its founding, the company has produced 33 in-house mechanical calibers. The namesake watch brand was acquired by Richemont in 2008. The caseback revealing the caliber RD118 for the Roger Dubuis Excalibur Grande Complication Roger Dubuis delivered its first in-house Grande Complication caliber in 2009, the caliber RD0829, with a perpetual calendar, a minute repeater and a flying tourbillon double micro-rotor. A Grand Complication watch is one that has several complications beyond telling time. How many of those complications and which ones need to be included has never been strictly defined. Roger Dubuis defines a Grand Complication as having at least three additional functions. The RD0829 did this in 2009 and the current Excalibur Grande Complication, does this as well. The 2025 Excalibur Grande Complication is powered by the Caliber RD118 automatic movement, which combines a perpetual calendar, a minute repeater and a tourbillon with a 60-hour power reserve. The movement is further accentuated by different finishes that are used across its appearance. Every surface of the 684 components were hand-decorated, the company said, earning it the Poinçon de Genève certification. A view of the Roger Dubuis signature Tourbillon and the biretrograde display for the perpetual ... More calendar This perpetual calendar provides automatic calculations for months with 28, 30, or 31 days, as well as the adjustment for leap years. By meeting these needs, the calendar does not require any manual correction until the year 2100 and then not again for another 100 years. In addition, some of the calendar information is presented on a biretrograde display, which consists of two retrograde hands that jump back to their starting point after completing a full cycle. In this case the days of the week and the days of the month are each displayed on semi-circular scales on the dial. A hand moves across each scale until reaching the end before snapping to the beginning of the scale, starting the cycle again. There is also a month disc between 11 and 12 o'clock, and a separate small leap year indication disc next to the month disc. Roger Dubuis, in partnership with fellow watchmaker, Jean-Marc Wiederrecht, co-patented the retrograde display system in the 1980s, which is the basis of the one being used for the Excalibur Grande Complication, the company said. The tritone chime for the minute repeater is activated by a pusher on the left side of the case. The information on each cam is mechanically read by the minute repeater's main feeler-spindle system, which passes it on to the racks enabling the hammers to strike the gongs. The gongs produce a sound that the watch brand describes as 'unsettling,' sounding what is known as 'the devil's chord' or the 'diabolus in musica' during medieval times. The tritone chime rings a low pitch for the hours, a high pitch for the minutes and two tones for the quarter hours. Consisting of three tones or six semitones, the devil's chord was prohibited in religious compositions, Roger Dubuis said. The Roger Dubuis Excalibur Grande Complication Roger Dubuis added an 'all or nothing' mechanism that requires the pusher to be pressed all the way in before the chime is activated. This is used to eliminate the risk of harming the mechanism by accidentally triggering it. Positioned between 5 and 6 o'clock, the flying tourbillon is a complication in all Roger Dubuis watches. And like all Roger Dubuis tourbillons, it is built in signature style that includes a mirror-polished cage inspired by the Celtic Cross and the use of lightweight, non-magnetic titanium. The dial and all its complications are contained in a 45mm pink gold case. The caseback provides a full view of the movement. The watch is completed with an interchangeable 3D brown calf-skin leather strap and a pink gold pin buckle.
