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Roger Dubuis, the Swiss brand with a Latin soul
Watches and Wonders

Roger Dubuis, the Swiss brand with a Latin soul

Tuesday, 07 October 2014
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Christophe Roulet
Editor-in-chief, HH Journal

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4 min read

Two collections took centre-stage at Roger Dubuis for the second edition of Watches&Wonders, in Hong Kong at end September. They were Hommage, typical of the powerful mechanics that are close to the brand’s heart, and Velvet, an ode to womanhood that has taken its rightful place in the brand’s world.

A product launched without any real promotion often wins critical esteem but rarely popular acclaim. Roger Dubuis is one of the few brands to prove the contrary. The ultra-feminine Velvet collection which it introduced in 2013 could easily have slipped under the radar. Unveiled to the world at the same time as the Pulsion range, Velvet had to make do with the crumbs from the watchmaker’s advertising spend. After all, Pulsion brought with it a whole new testosterone-fuelled world that seemed far more of a match for Roger Dubuis than a woman’s timepiece, something of an obligation for a brand that seemed pushed into proving itself as an “all-round” watchmaker.

Feminine charms

If ever the brand did feel compelled to oblige, well so much the better! The public made its choice between Pulsion, forced to emerge in an already overcrowded sports watch segment, and Velvet with its inspired design. Women’s watches now represent 30% of sales at Roger Dubuis. A product that “kicks ass”, as Creative Director Alvaro Maggini explains. Knowing this, it’s easy to see why Roger Dubuis turned the spotlight on Velvet at the Hong Kong fair, this time with a campaign that shows the watches being modelled by Stephanie Seymour. “But don’t go thinking that Velvet is for ‘girly girls’ or Barbies,” jumps in Alvaro Maggini. “Stephanie Seymour is a woman with a strong personality, and our watches for women also have plenty of character that fits perfectly with the Roger Dubuis style: bold and unmistakable.”

Velvet Haute Couture Mink Fur

In the case of Velvet, this style revolves around the watch’s “power of seduction” with trompe l’œil cases that marry round and tonneau forms, subtly embellished lugs, a decorative third link in the bracelet, and hand-applied, elongated Roman numerals converging towards the centre of the dial that is built on two levels for a greater impression of depth. For the watch’s latest incarnation, Roger Dubuis has imagined ways to draw out this architecture with three Velvet Haute Couture that put special emphasis on the strap in passementerie, corset-laced leather or fur, not forgetting the brand’s expertise in jewellery, for as CEO Jean-Marc Pontroué reminds us, “all our Velvet watches are gem-set.” Proving this were the three Velvet Haute Joaillerie that sparkled like a million stars inside a booth which the brand imagined in a retro-futurist spirit; “a tribute to inventors juxtaposed with mad scientists; fascinatingly creative movements flirting with style effects; new technologies versus puddled iron and brass.”

Roger Dubuis soon to be 20

Hommage, the year’s flagship collection, also welcomes a new addition that was shown on Asian soil: the Hommage Minute Repeater Tourbillon Automatic, another demonstration by the brand of its original approach to mechanical watchmaking, which includes having 100% of its production certified by the Poinçon de Genève. This new Hommage is automatically wound by double micro-rotors. The flying tourbillon is positioned inside a new cage for better inertia and anti-shock protection. Rectangular repeater gongs are combined with a “centrifugal force striking dissipator’ for clearer quality of sound. In a word, micromechanical genius packed into 343 parts and produced in a limited edition of just 20, all for a good cause.

“We have indeed chosen the Hommage Minute Repeater Tourbillon Automatic as the anniversary watch for Roger Dubuis’ twentieth anniversary in 2015,” comments Jean-Marc Pontroué. “Twenty years is certainly an important milestone for our Maison, but we don’t want to overdo things. These past years, we’ve seen any and every anniversary celebrated. Roger Dubuis is a brand that goes against the grain, and so we have no intention of getting caught up in that. Instead we will host twenty dinners with our clients in twenty different countries, each representing one of our markets, where we will propose one of these twenty Hommage Minute Repeater Tourbillon Automatic. The following year, 2016, will certainly be more of a landmark as it will be the year of the woman at Roger Dubuis.”

We're one of the last to have kept going.
Alvaro Maggini

“Nothing out of the ordinary for our twentieth anniversary,” confirms Alvaro Maggini, “although it has to be said that Roger Dubuis is one of the rare brands to have survived the early 2000s boom when brands were springing up left, right and centre, only to disappear just as quickly. We’re one of the last to have kept going.” The recipe for success, according to the designer? A brand that has broken the mould, kickstarted original creativity, and given watchmaking a good shake-up. “Since the 1990s, Roger Dubuis has been behind such extravagant watches as Follow Me or Easy Diver that I’d love to revive. Were they in bad taste? No. Rebellious? Maybe, like Brigitte Bardot right from her youth. Which is personally what I like about Roger Dubuis: the iconoclast nature of a Swiss brand with a Latin soul!”

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