Roger Dubuis was founded in 1995 but only released its first watch the following year, which may be why it is not yet making too much of a fuss about its 30th anniversary with its 2025 novelties.
Its mission since those earliest years has been to create watches that cannot be found anywhere else, and a new Excalibur Biretrograde Calendar could truly only have emerged from the Roger Dubuis atelier.
The very first timepiece from the watchmaker in 1996, and may since, featured a Biretrograde calendar display.
This new model has a mother of pearl dial with days of the week and days of the month arranged on two rose gold sweeping arcs.
Hands that travel around those arcs before snapping back in the blink of an eye when they return to Monday or the 1st of the month.
There are openings within the arcs, with jewelled bridges reaching out to pin their respective parts of the automatic Calibre RD840 with 60 hour power reserve.
As-ever, the movement has been beautifully finished by hand, excellence-assured with a Geneva Seal, and presented via an exhibition case back.
The movement also carries an engraved message from the maison: “C’est une montre actuelle, inspirée mais pas soumise au passé, qui se projette dans un futur qui nous appartient,” it reads.
Translated, it advises reassuringly: “This is a watch of today, inspired but not restricted to the past, projected into a future that belongs to us.”
Roger Dubuis, particularly through the Excalibur line, has drifted into statement watches that might feel oversized on the wrist in today’s market, but the new Excalibur Biretrograde Calendar comes in a notably trim 40mm rose gold case, more in line with its 1990s forefathers.
Price is on application.