“Day & Night” caught up with Gregory Bruttin, Product Strategy Director at Roger Dubuis, on the sidelines of the brand’s presentation during Watches and Wonders 2021. Bruttin explains how haute horlogerie is an inspired art and something that is ‘fun’ to create is definitely on its way to becoming a show-stealer once unveiled…
Q: Can you tell us about the watch everyone is talking about – Excalibur Glow Me Up?
A: The Glow Me Up started with the truth that we all have two faces – the one during the day at our jobs, and the one we have during the night. At Roger Dubuis, we always have a way of showing the two faces we have – the watchmaker working on high watchmaking is also the other one that is a bit crazy and loves to create surprises. It was the starting point of the story. We decided to use diamond, because it is important for us. We decided to modify the shape of the diamond a bit, to put some luminescent material inside to get a glow effect during the night. It is like the Twofold; we have a face for the day – the quiet, very normal for Roger Dubuis – the face for the night is more crazy and more colourful.
Q: How many prototypes did you have to go through before you finally got the watch you wanted?
A: We actually played with the stone; we took a stone and milled a part of the stone to find the right angle to place the SuperLuminova. Because the cut of the diamond is made to trap the light, we needed to find the right angle to put an additional source of light inside the diamond. The advantage of diamonds is that we can take the same diamond and modify the angle to put the element inside. We did this five, or six times to finally achieve the result we wanted. This was for the shape of the diamond.
The colour was more challenging as this is outside of the watch and the SuperLuminova is not protected by the case. It was important for us to find the right metal to mix with SuperLuminova to have a good resistance to wear and tear over time. We had to experiment a lot with different proportions of SuperLuminova and glue to use inside. We conducted around 20 or 30 tests to find not only the right colour, but the right proportion to get a good luminescence. The challenge was to achieve the same effect between the dial, the tip and the diamond.
Q: Where do you envisage using this technology in the future? In what line?
A: We have worked a lot for this technology and have a patent for it. We plan to use it in the future for animation and other things. There are a lot of possibilities as we can play not only with diamonds, but also coloured stones. We cannot even imagine what will happen if you put yellow SuperLuminova inside a blue sapphire – it may be incredible. The idea is to use that in the Excalibur collection, because the Twofold is more linked to the arts and we prefer to use it in this line. This is less linked to the world of motorsport or the sportier aspect that is predominant in the Spider collection.
Q: What was your main challenge in creating the Glow Me Up?
A: We apply SuperLuminova inside a part of the cut of the diamond, but we don’t destroy it. It is possible to remove the SuperLuminova, and you would still have a diamond of good quality. This is an important consideration and we need to respect international rules on this matter. This is the main challenge when we play with precious stones, gold – you don’t destroy the quality of the diamond.
Q: Did you anticipate the amount of positive feedback the watch has received?
A: Honestly no; we understand the beauty of the brand when we do this kind of project. We started on the project because it was good fun, and we had fun at the company. Often, when we have had fun creating a project, it is a great success. The last example was the Excalibur Twofold we launched last year. In the beginning, it was a really crazy project and it was great to achieve that, and everyone was very happy with the result.
For Glow Me Up, we are a bit surprised by its success because the Day watch is very quiet for Roger Dubuis; it is not like Twofold is: white, eye-catching. We think Roger Dubuis’ customers like subtlety and I think they like showing it to their friends – how it looks in the day and but is so much fun in the night, with coloured diamonds. We like to challenge the rules of watchmaking. Making rainbows is a trend in watchmaking now, but to come with this kind of approach only during the night is great fun. For me, the best thing is that I have a lot of people asking me if they could use our technology, which is very nice.
Q: The new Excalibur Single Flying Tourbillon has been redesigned to give it a very contemporary modern touch; is that what the future design for Roger Dubuis will be?
A: No, the important thing is to create the trend, to lead the evolution in watchmaking. It is the watch of today but maybe in the next five or ten years, we will come with an evolution of this watch. For us, it is important to create the trend; I love to use the comparison with a car. If you take the example of a BMW, the car launched today is very different from the car launched 10 years ago; very different in terms of design, ergonomics, comfort, technology. At Roger Dubuis, it is important to give our client an evolution; to improve the quality of our product in terms of technology, comfort, aesthetics, and so on. The next one will be an evolution of the one we have today. It is very difficult to foresee today what the evolution will be, but we will feel the market, look at the advances in the field, and we will come up with an evolution perhaps ten years from now. There will be evolution of watchmaking in Roger Dubuis; all our watches will grow this way. We have a lot of ideas, and we will come back with many more projects in the future.
Q: The Lamborghini collaboration is an integral part of Roger Dubuis; but this year, there has been no collaboration projects?
A: Not yet, but the year is not finished. We haven’t forgotten Lamborghini; it is an important partnership for us, and we will continue to develop products together. We have lots of projects in the pipeline; the Excalibur collection is very important to the brand, in terms of innovation and perception because it is the window through which we highlight our knowledge of high watchmaking. It is an important project for us and will continue to be important and we will continue to animate. We haven’t forgotten Lamborghini or Spider and we will come back with a lot of surprises.
