Roger Dubuis unveils the Hommage La Placide, a 28-piece tribute to its founder combining historic RD14 and RD72 calibres with modern Poinçon de Genève certification.
In haute horlogerie, anniversaries mean something. They’re not just marketing opportunities. They’re moments for a manufacture to look back at what it’s built, reconnect with its founding principles, and show how tradition lives in the present. As Roger Dubuis marks three decades of independent watchmaking, the Genevan manufacture has created a timepiece that does all of this: the Hommage La Placide.
Only 28 pieces will be made. This isn’t another anniversary special edition with a different dial colour. It’s a deeply personal tribute to Mr Roger Dubuis himself, combining authentic components from the brand’s archives with newly manufactured elements. The result is a watch that tells multiple stories at once,of technical prowess, aesthetic refinement, and one man’s lasting influence on watchmaking.
A Tribute Within a Tribute
The Hommage collection has always mattered at Roger Dubuis. When it launched in 1996, it was Mr Roger Dubuis‘ acknowledgement of the watchmakers, teachers, and friends who shaped his career. These were the people who guided him, who gave him the inspiration and knowledge that eventually allowed him to create his own manufacture.
For this 30th anniversary, the manufacture turned that concept inward. The new watch honours the watchmaker himself. The name “La Placide” carries particular weight,it references the nickname given to Roger Dubuis during his childhood as a scout, one he carried throughout his life and career. It perfectly captured his calm spirit and the quiet wisdom that defined his approach to watchmaking.
The decision to honour Mr Roger Dubuis with a perpetual calendar featuring a biretrograde display wasn’t random. This complication held special meaning for him. The biretrograde display, where hands traverse semi-circular scales before instantly snapping back to zero, represents the kind of mechanical theatre Roger Dubuis championed throughout his career. It’s watchmaking as performance.
The Technical Foundation: Breathing New Life Into History
The Calibre RD1472 beats at the heart of the Hommage La Placide. This movement represents one of the manufacture’s most ambitious projects in recent years. It combines the RD14 base movement,the maison’s first in-house automatic calibre from 2004,with the RD72 module that appeared in 1999. This is only the second time these two elements have been united.
Creating the RD1472 began with reintroducing original RD14 calibres from the manufacture’s reserves. Each movement underwent extensive evaluation. Quality control tests and full diagnostics ensured every component met the standards required for a modern Roger Dubuis timepiece. These vintage movements got a second life, transformed into contemporary calibres.
The RD14 base movement carries several distinguishing features. It incorporates a swan neck regulator,a respected element in haute horlogerie due to its traditional nature and decorative finish. Beyond aesthetics, this component offers practical advantages: superior shock resistance and more precise adjustment. The calibre also uses original Roger Dubuis balance springs, components with particular historical significance. Their in-house production in the early 2000s gave Roger Dubuis official manufacture status. A pivotal moment for the brand.
But the restoration went beyond simple refurbishment. Engineers undertook a complete recalculation of the gear train, repositioning all the axes of the wheels to improve performance. This careful refinement shows how respect for heritage doesn’t preclude improvement. It can provide the foundation for genuine advancement.
The Perpetual Calendar Module: A Technical Renaissance
The restored RD14 base calibres were paired with the RD72 module, which houses the perpetual calendar complication Roger Dubuis loved. This mechanism manages the display of day, date, month, leap year, and moonphase,a constellation of information requiring precise mechanical orchestration to maintain accuracy through varying month lengths and the quadrennial leap year cycle.
Bringing the RD72 module back into production required substantial manufacturing capability. The manufacture had to recreate the main plate, large bridge, and half of the module’s components,levers, springs, wheels, and pinions. All of it done in-house at the Genevan atelier. The depth of expertise required for this work isn’t trivial.
One elegant aspect of the RD72 module is its approach to displaying month and leap year. The mechanism uses two star-shaped wheels,one with 12 teeth, another with 48,combined to allow both indications to share the same counter through two co-axial hands. It’s intelligent design: solving a complex problem with mechanical elegance rather than brute force.
The complete RD1472 calibre comprises 307 components, crowned by a newly manufactured rotor in 18-carat pink gold. The movement’s decoration employs 15 distinct techniques: wheel-bevelling, tool-bevelling, rounding, circular graining, snailing, Geneva stripes, mirror polishing, teeth polishing, tip polishing, perlage, truing, internal drawing, external drawing, frosting, and burnishing. Every surface,visible or hidden within the movement,receives proper attention.
Meeting Modern Standards: The Poinçon de Genève Challenge
Achieving Poinçon de Genève certification for the RD1472 presented unique challenges. This hallmark of excellence mattered greatly to Mr Roger Dubuis when creating his timepieces, and it remains a defining characteristic of the manufacture’s output today. But the certification criteria have evolved significantly.
When the original RD14 and RD72 were created, the Poinçon de Genève focused primarily on craftsmanship and finishing. The latest standards, implemented in 2012, emphasise chronometry. Testing now happens on the complete timepiece, not just the movement. This shift required Roger Dubuis’ artisans to pay particular attention to the calibre’s setting within the case, ensuring the assembled watch could meet contemporary requirements.
Movement setting has always held tremendous importance in horological workshops. It’s the crucial transition from a beautifully finished calibre to a properly functioning timepiece. The successful Poinçon de Genève certification of the Hommage La Placide proves the skill of Roger Dubuis’ craftsmen,their ability to honour historical techniques whilst meeting rigorous modern standards.
A Dial of Many Layers
The dial proves every bit as complex as the movement it conceals. Five distinct layers, each with its own decoration and finish. The result is visual depth whilst maintaining clarity across the watch’s various indications.
The biretrograde display dominates the upper portion, its semi-circular scales echoing the configuration that first appeared in Roger Dubuis watches in 1995. The scales feature distinctive geometry,wide at their outer edges, they narrow progressively towards the centre. This perspective draws the eye inward. The calendar hands traverse these arcs with balletic grace before their instantaneous return journey. A mechanical flourish that captivates every time.
The outermost layer is a circular-brushed flange with rhodium coating. It carries the transferred numerals and minute track, with polished angles adding flashes of light around the dial’s periphery. Moving inward, the calendar segments use mother-of-pearl, chosen for its natural lustre and the subtle variations that make each dial unique. These segments feature transferred text and hand-bevelled sides,details that reveal themselves under closer examination.
The main dial plate showcases “Leman Blue”,a tribute to Lake Geneva, which Roger Dubuis observed daily as a student on the train journey between Geneva and Vevey. This connection to the watchmaker’s formative years adds personal significance to the timepiece. The blue receives a lacquer treatment to deepen its hue, providing a rich backdrop for the applied hour markers, transferred text, and lunar month information.
The subsidiary counters also use mother-of-pearl, though finished with a broader circular brushed pattern that distinguishes them from the calendar segments. The moonphase display merges blue aventurine,with its characteristic metallic sparkle,and two curved moons in 18-carat yellow gold. This celestial complication completes the perpetual calendar’s comprehensive tracking of temporal cycles.
The Complete Package
The 38mm case uses 18-carat pink gold, offering warmer tones than white gold or platinum. This diameter is a deliberate move towards vintage proportions, rejecting the oversized cases that dominated much of 21st-century watchmaking. The result feels refined rather than imposing. Elegant, not aggressive.
The watch comes with a blue leather strap featuring interchangeable attachments. Practical. It allows owners to refresh their timepiece’s appearance. The strap buckle carries an original Roger Dubuis emblem, another connection to the manufacture’s heritage.
With production limited to 28 pieces, the Hommage La Placide will find homes with serious collectors who appreciate both its technical accomplishments and historical significance. The number itself may reference something specific about the brand’s history, though Roger Dubuis hasn’t specified.
A Parallel Creation
The Hommage La Placide arrives alongside another significant 30th anniversary piece: the Excalibur Monobalancier Biretrograde Calendar, which debuted at Watches and Wonders Geneva. Together, these two timepieces offer collectors different interpretations of the biretrograde complication that appealed to Roger Dubuis.
The Excalibur, positioned within the manufacture’s more contemporary collection, shows how this classical complication can be reimagined with modern materials and aesthetics. The pairing underscores an essential truth about Roger Dubuis: the brand can honour its heritage whilst simultaneously pushing forward.
A Gift to the Past
Roger Dubuis has extended a special offer to existing Hommage collection owners. These individuals can visit any Roger Dubuis monobrand boutique worldwide to receive a complimentary Hommage strap fitted to their original timepiece. This acknowledgement of the collectors who supported the brand during its earlier years adds a human dimension to the anniversary celebrations. A manufacture’s heritage doesn’t just live in its archives. It lives in the watches worn by enthusiasts around the world.
The Measure of Three Decades
The Hommage La Placide succeeds because it resists treating an anniversary as merely a marketing milestone. Instead, it engages seriously with what three decades of independent watchmaking means, and how that history might be honoured without descending into pastiche.
By combining authentic period components with newly manufactured elements, Roger Dubuis has created something that exists in productive tension between past and present. The movement itself embodies this duality. Its RD14 base brings forward genuine articles from the mid-2000s. Its RD72 module required extensive remanufacturing. And the complete assembly meets certification standards that postdate both original calibres.
The aesthetic approach similarly works across time. The biretrograde display connects directly to Roger Dubuis’ work in 1995, yet the layered dial construction and colour palette feel entirely modern. The 38mm case size recalls pre-2000s proportions, yet the overall execution possesses the refinement expected from today’s haute horlogerie.
For collectors seeking more than another limited edition, the Hommage La Placide offers genuine substance. It’s a manufacture confident enough in its identity to look backward without nostalgia, to celebrate its founder without hagiography, and to honour craftsmanship whilst acknowledging that standards evolve. In these 28 timepieces, Roger Dubuis has created more than a commemoration of 30 years past. It’s built a foundation for the decades ahead.
