Roger Dubuis knows how to celebrate in style. For Watches and Wonders 2025, the maison is pulling out all the stops for its 30th anniversary with two major new releases: the Excalibur Biretrograde Calendar and the headline-stealing Excalibur Grande Complication. Both showcase the brand’s signature blend of expressive design and high-octane technical prowess, but it’s the Grande Complication that really captures the imagination—and the ears.
Roger Dubuis Excalibur Grande Complication
This latest ultra-limited masterpiece (just eight pieces worldwide) pays tribute to Roger Dubuis’ roots as one of independent watchmaking’s original disruptors. Though now under the Richemont umbrella, the Geneva-based maison continues to forge its own path with what it calls “hyper horology”: an unrelenting commitment to complex movements and sculptural aesthetics.
So what makes this one a “Grande Complication”? In haute horlogerie, that label is reserved for watches that feature at least three high-level complications. The Excalibur Grande Complication delivers in spades, combining a biretrograde perpetual calendar, a chiming minute repeater, and a flying tourbillon—each formidable in its own right, but together forming a kind of mechanical symphony.
At its heart is the new RD0829 calibre, made up of an astonishing 684 components. The perpetual calendar doesn’t just keep track of leap years and the shifting quirks of the Gregorian calendar—it does so with flair, using biretrograde hands that sweep across arched scales and snap back dramatically to the beginning once their cycles are complete. It’s an elegant, kinetic twist on a classically cerebral complication.
Then there's the minute repeater, which chimes the time on demand using a melodic scale that includes the “diabolus in musica”—a tritone interval once considered forbidden in medieval music for its dissonant, unsettling effect. Here, it adds an unexpected emotional depth to the chime, underscoring Roger Dubuis’ reputation for drama and edge.
The third act comes courtesy of a flying tourbillon, housed in a polished cage inspired by the Celtic cross. As always, the tourbillon serves a practical purpose—counteracting the effects of gravity on the escapement—but in true Dubuis fashion, it also serves as a hypnotic centrepiece for the skeletonised dial.
Of course, all of this is wrapped in a suitably flamboyant case: 45mm of 18-karat pink gold, finished to the exacting standards of the Poinçon de Genève. The finishing isn’t just decorative—it’s a guarantee of quality, origin, and performance that only a handful of watchmakers worldwide can attain.
With a reported price tag of $691,000, the Excalibur Grande Complication is very much a collector’s piece. But more than that, it’s a statement: that even three decades in, Roger Dubuis still knows how to shock, surprise, and seduce the watch world.
