Roger Dubuis, challenging horological rules

Roger Dubuis, a watchmaker who follows no rules, created a veritable storm at the 2023 edition of Watches and Wonders when they unveiled their concept watch, the Monovortex Split-Seconds Chronograph. We caught up with Nicola Andreatta, CEO of Roger Dubuis, who explains why the marque is focusing on Hyper Horology and what it entails

Roger Dubuis’ motto for this year is “Hyper Horology”; what do you mean by that?
Simply put, it is our way of interpreting Haute Horlogerie in a more expressive and contemporary manner. To explain in more detail, “hyper” is a Greek prefix that means “to go beyond”. If we had to choose one word to describe the brand, it would be “excess” from the Latin etymology of excess, which is “excedere” meaning “to go beyond”. The purpose of the company is “To go beyond”; we want to challenge the classic watchmaking world by presenting with our proposals that are futuristic, completely different, and to continue to challenge the boundaries of watchmaking. That is what we mean by the term Hyper Horology.

Can you tell us about the concept watch, the Monovortex Split-Seconds Chronograph that you have unveiled now?
It is a concept watch; it is a platform for Roger Dubuis. It is a timepiece where we wanted to show everything about the craftsmanship, innovation, and performance of Roger Dubuis. So, we took a split-seconds chronograph – the most complicated calibre we have in watchmaking – and we added 3 patents to it. We are always obsessed with performance, we are obsessed with controlling the effect of gravity on our calibres and that is exactly what we have achieved with our new tourbillon system. Our Conical Monovortex Tourbillon is a balance wheel that rotates along a conical trajectory, which compensates gravity in a much better way than a normal tourbillon.

We also have a new energy system, the Turborotor Cylindrical Oscillating Weight at 12 o’clock that is an oscillating mass in the form of a cylinder. It rotates in a specific manner that makes it better than a normal oscillating mass, or a micro rotor because the force works perpendicularly towards the cylinder.

Lastly, we have a new chronographic minutes display, the Rotating Minute Counter at 3 o’clock that is pretty easy in terms of technique but is a great idea. Sometimes, it is more difficult to get an idea than to realise the idea. We were still not satisfied after all of these innovations and so we evolved the design of our Spider case to a completely new design and we crafted it in red MCF (Mineral Composite Fibre). So, the Monovortex Split-Seconds Chronograph shows all the innovations of the maison and the work we have been doing the last few years. Once we are sure these are working well, we will cascade each innovation to our more commercial products. I think that minute counter will be the first innovation to be translated commercially.

How were you able to get a red colour for the concept watch, as red is a very difficult colour to achieve due to adverse skin reactions?
It depends on the materials used; today, there is only ceramic ideally for red. But we did not want to use red with ceramic. Two years ago, we came up with MCF with a whitish tone. Now, we decided to make it in red. Red is a colour dear to us in Roger Dubuis and it is part of our identity. We managed to change our white MCF into a red MCF – a material that is very light and easy to machine, and it has a beautiful colour that does not change with time. It is 60% lighter than ceramic and 1.2 times lighter than carbon fibre. It is a super-light material that makes the watch very comfortable on the  wrist, so much so that you almost don’t feel it. It is a material that is very hard to scratch and at the same time easy to polish unlike ceramic which is very complicated to polish.

You also have a new case; will that be integrated into the future watches of the maison?
At this point, I do not know because, in the past 3 years, we have been working to redesign and restyle our Excalibur collection. We started with the Double Flying Tourbillon, then we came with a Single Flying Tourbillon, and last year it was the Monobalancier. We are now starting the same journey with the Spider collection, which is a sportier collection. This is one of our attempts in trying to redesign, reinvent or evolve our Spider case. I am pretty pleased but think that there is still some more to done and we will continue working to come up with a final shape in the next couple of years. The entire Spider collection will be completely revamped.

Roger Dubuis has four pillars – the Excalibur, Excalibur Spider, Knights of the Round Table, and the Hyper watches; will you be maintaining these four collections?
Absolutely, and the work we have done in the past three years has been to clarify our merchandising approach. We have four sides of the same coin; the Excalibur connects with contemporary art and urban culture, and then the Excalibur Spider is sportier in execution and connected with motorsports, such as Lamborghini and Pirelli. We then have the Knights of the Round Table, which in a way is a collection in itself, probably the most iconic that we have and, finally, we have our Hyper watches, which will be the top tier of what we do. It will be only incredible complications, kind of similar to the one we have shown now. But we are talking about traditional haute horology complications, such as minute repeaters, perpetual calendars, chronographs, and so on. That will be the future and I am not intending to change that. I am very clear on that; I am the first CEO of Roger Dubuis who has not launched a new collection. I have actually reduced our lines; we need to focus on a few collections.

Are there any updates on the Pirelli as lately Roger Dubuis has concentrated more on Lamborghini?
Yes, we are working on a new edition of our celebrated automatic skeleton Pirelli, which should come out later this year. We are also working on something that we will launch next year, but our cycles are very long because of the R&D and right now, I am unable to give more information.

Recently, Lamborghini announced their new car, the hybrid Revuelto; does Roger Dubuis have any plans to link a watch with that?
We have the Aventador and the Countach; we will stay with the hyper cars. I was able to see the  Revuelto last year itself as our relationship with Lamborghini is such that we see their works in progress as they do ours. The Revuelto is an evolution of the Aventador, a super nice car, and yes, we will probably match that car with a timepiece.