High watchmaking brand Roger Dubuis is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and their offerings unveiled at Watches & Wonders draw heavily on the maison’s design codes and DNA. We speak to CEO David Chaumet on how the brand’s history has shaped its latest horological offerings
Since you have taken charge of Roger Dubuis, what changes can we expect from the brand going forward?
To understand this better, we need to also understand my background with the maison. I had been with the brand earlier for 11 years. I joined, in fact, in 2008, just before Richemont acquired Roger Dubuis and I had been working with Carlos Dias for a few months. I had a good connection in terms of knowledge of the maison as well as emotional connection with Mr Dubuis about his vision for the maison. Then, as I had worked as a Customer Service and Quality Director for Roger Dubuis for four years, I had a deep understanding of what the Manufacture was capable of creating and what were the lines of development that could be pushed further. After this, I took charge of the Swiss and European markets. Then I moved to Hong Kong, where I was the President for Asia Pacific – from China to Australia, handling big teams and so on. I did this for 11 years, so I know the maison really well.
You were there when the Monegasque and the other collections were launched?
Yes, I was there for all of them – Monegasque, Velvet, and Pulsion collections. As I was in charge of the client service and the after-sales service, I made sure since day one to see all the timepieces when they came back for service. I knew all the timepieces that came out between 1995 and 2008 really well. By then, I moved to another watch maison as the CEO; when the opportunity to come back to Roger Dubuis as CEO arose, I gladly accepted because Roger Dubuis is a part of my life – a good chunk of my life. To be the leader of this maison means a lot to me.
Since I knew that I was moving back, I started to think about what could be done to mark the 30th anniversary of the maison this year. When I joined, I started to closely work with all the teams bearing in mind to retain as much as we could, the original DNA of the maison, which was to present the traditional high watchmaking of Geneva with a different expression. I think that all that we have designed and created since I joined, is really aligned with the original purpose that Mr Roger Dubuis had when he launched the maison.
It was known that Mr Roger Dubuis loved perpetual calendars; is that the reason why you have launched a grand complication featuring a perpetual minute repeater this year?
Yes, that is true. You have summarised perfectly why we launched the Excalibur Grande Complication. It is not only a perpetual calendar but an alternative way of displaying all the information. He was really fascinated with the retrograde system and even patented the retrograde system in 1989, together with the PME, before he launched Roger Dubuis. One of the first timepieces he launched was the Sympathie, with a perpetual calendar.
Later still, the brand brought out something quite different with the double tourbillon and with a retrograde minute and hours. For the 20th anniversary of the maison, we launched a pocket watch that carried all the codes of Roger Dubuis, perpetual calendar, minute repeater. He had personally chosen the colours – all the colours that he loved. It was a unique piece pocket watch.
For the 30th anniversary, we decided to take all that is the best of Roger Dubuis’ signature codes – perpetual calendar, minute repeater, flying tourbillon, double micro-rotor, the Poinçon de Genève seal, and the colour codes he favoured. This edition is limited to only 8 pieces. We went even further in terms of beauty of the finishings; even the inner angles of the components have been worked by hand in the manufacture. It’s really a stunning timepiece and it is a good arrival into the ecosystem of Roger Dubuis, where we have a strong signature with the skeleton and flying tourbillon. To have a complicated timepiece without making it a skeleton makes it slightly different as well, and we are attracting new clients.
This will be a talking piece, definitely, but isn’t the Biretrograde Calendar more important for the brand as the smaller and slimmer case size makes it a daily-wear watch?
Yes, even if you are working in a bank or in a regular industry, the Biretrograde Calendar would work very well. For this one also, we have used many of the Roger Dubuis’ codes. The Hommage series had mother-of-pearl dials that were blue, red, green, and white. We thought that it is a good idea to offer a smaller diameter and a thinner timepiece – with a lot of content but with a difference. We wanted our aficionados to see the beauty of the finishing of the timepiece from the back as well as the front.
We are once again engraving the text, “This is a watch of today, inspired but not restricted to the past, projected into a future that belongs to us.” This was a sentence written on the back of our earlier timepieces, and we thought it was a good idea to plug it back. We also have the retrograde indication with the Geneva Seal logo on the top.
What took the brand so long to come up with a smaller size; people loved the watches, but they just needed something at a more comfortable size? It’s like a new phase for Roger Dubuis.
Thank you for the nice comment. I think the 30th anniversary celebration is the right time for this. We are launching a few pieces with more creativity, lots of contrast. It’s a beautiful time. It’s not the same audience as for this one; that is true. We want to attract new clients but will continue catering to the tastes of our current clients. We have a fantastic tool for reaching out to both sets of audience – our Bespoke Department and the Manufacture where we design and create customised unique timepieces for clients. It is unique in terms of the usage of materials, colours, stones, specific components, or movements.
Will the Biretrograde Calendar continue with the Excalibur name, or will it be a separate line of its own in the future; mostly because it is a different kind of watch?
You will find all the codes of Excalibur – the Triple X, the bezel, integrated crown – in the Biretrograde Calendar. So this is really an Excalibur, but an Excalibur with a Biretrograde Calendar. Currently, we have collections with a specific mission; we have the Excalibur with its mission of high watchmaking exclusivity. We have Excalibur Spider, which is connected to motorsport activities, with daring materials, designs and mix and match of complications. We also have minute repeaters in a sporty watch with a carbon case, which is quite unusual. And then we have the Knights of the Round Table, which has calibres with different missions and different expressions. We may come out in the future with different metals and different complications because this is a perfect, easy-to-wear a watch.
