Ahead of SIHH, Roger Dubuis has warned of “tremors of an unprecedented Excalibur eruption”. There is certainly no subtlety in its advanced marketing, promising that the 2017 Excalibur, the iconic and deliberately extravagant Roger Dubuis collection, is set to wake up the watchmaking world at the January show.
Visually, it is the addition of cobalt coloured chrome that makes an immediate statement. The highly unusual metal is used throughout the visible 590-part hand-wound RD101 Quatuor movement and its colour is matched with the electric blue leather strap with bright red stitching.
Subtle, this 48mm monster is not, but Roger Dubuis believes it will find 28 customers for the limited edition run.
Only slightly less in your face is the Roger Dubuis Excalibur Spider Skeleton Automatic (pictured above), which jumps off the wrist with its tricolour choices of blue, black and red.
The colour combination is particularly powerful on the black rubber strap, which has blue leather inlay and red stitching. The 45mm watch looks like it will have more complications than the automatic RD820SQ skeletonised movement delivers.
On close inspection, you find only hour and minute hands tipped with red arrows at your command, but it is the way the design barks at you that just 88 customers of the watch will be able to appreciate.
Small enough for a lady’s wrist, but by no means understated is the Excalibur Essential 36 Automatic, which Roger Dubuis describes as “like the electric blue lava bursting from certain volcanoes”. Crikey!
On the wrist the timepiece is more elegant than the brand suggests, with the black DLC-treated 36mm titanium case topped by a bezel set with 48 blue sapphires stylishly surrounding the blue PVD-coated dial with its sun-brushed finish.
The trademark hour markers that stretch in 12 radiuses from the centre of the dial sit beneath satin-brushed white gold hands.
A small seconds dial sits at 6 o’clock. The watch, which is limited in production to just 28 pieces, contains a self-winding calibre RD830.
