Earlier this year, we were given a taste of the devil. Launched at the digital Watches & Wonders Geneva, the Excalibur Diabolus in Machina was Roger Dubuis’ modern take on the classical minute repeater, a reinvention of the rather traditional complication into something that was a whole lot edgier.
Today marks the opening day of the Watches & Wonders Shanghai edition and Roger Dubuis is returning with its second sinful chapter. Having debuted a new minute repeater complication, Roger Dubuis presents to us a brand new take on a double flying tourbillon movement. Named after the Latin word for pride, one of the seven deadly sins, the Excalibur Superbia is loud, hedonistic, hyper horology to its fullest.
Pride, along with excess, is the mindset of today’s Roger Dubuis, powered by its inherent characteristics to be over-the-top and utterly extravagant to the core. It has always been part of Roger Dubuis’ DNA to be different, to re-invent the game since its founding 25 years ago, and this philosophy is carried to its contemporary pieces today.
The Excalibur Superbia is crafted in palladium-enriched white gold and set with exactly 600 precious white diamonds and blue sapphires. The movement inside is the RD 108SQ, an improved version of the calibre that was launched in 2005, a double-regulator calibre connected with a differential, skeletonized to hide none of its inner workings and adorned with a diamond-set star.
What is truly a world-premiere feat in the Excalibur Superbia is in the stone-setting. Every gemstone is first cut into a tetrahedron (no easy task) before they are set on the flange, bezel, case and crown in an invisible setting. This is a challenge in itself but is made doubly difficult when done on a curved surface. The amount of time and effort it took to create one watch is staggering. It takes a gem setter an average of 30 minutes to make a single groove in each gemstone, meaning it takes 900 hours to create grooves on all three sides of the 600 diamonds, plus another 420 hours to set the case and bezel.
Technical Specifications
Movement
Manual winding Calibre 108SQ; hours, minutes, double flying tourbillon at 4 and 8 o’clock; 2 x 3Hz; 72-hour power reserve; Poinçon de Genève certified
Case
White gold; 45mm; 14.4mm thick; bezel and crown set with tetrahedron-cut gems; case back in white gold set with brilliant cut diamonds; water-resistant to 100m
Strap
Calf leather, interchangeable with quick release system; triple folding white gold buckle set with diamonds
Unique piece
