Roger Dubuis is at its best when classic complication-making is allowed to misbehave a little.
The Excalibur Biretrograde Perpetual Calendar, presented in Geneva during Watches & Wonders 2026, takes one of the most traditional complications in Swiss watchmaking and places it inside the brand’s sharpest visual language.
The result is a 40 mm pink gold watch that doesn’t confuse restraint with convention.
At a glance
- Roger Dubuis has introduced the Excalibur Biretrograde Perpetual Calendar at Watches & Wonders 2026 in Geneva.
- The watch combines a 40 mm pink gold case, an openworked dial and dual retrograde day and date displays.
- It debuts the RD850 automatic calibre, finished with 16 types of decoration at the brand’s Manufacture.
A perpetual calendar in the Excalibur shape
The Excalibur line has been part of Roger Dubuis since 2005, and its identity is unusually clear for a contemporary haute horlogerie collection.
A fluted bezel, crown guard and distinctive triple-lug strap attachment give the case its architectural profile, even before the dial begins to do any of the talking.
Here, that assertive frame is scaled to a relatively modest 40 mm, which matters because perpetual calendars can easily become crowded or oversized when their indications are spread across a modern openworked display.
The choice of pink gold gives the watch warmth without softening the Excalibur’s angular character.
This model follows the 2025 Hommage La Placide, a 38 mm perpetual calendar with retrograde day and date displays that leaned into the more classical side of the Maison’s history.
The new Excalibur takes a related complication layout and moves it into a more contemporary, visibly mechanical setting.
The biretrograde display carries real Roger Dubuis DNA
The biretrograde display isn’t decorative theatre added for effect.
Roger Dubuis co-patented his own biretrograde display with Jean-Marc Wiederrecht in 1989, before the mechanism appeared in the Maison’s earliest watches in 1996.
On the Excalibur Biretrograde Perpetual Calendar, the date is shown on an arcing track on the right side of the dial, indicated by an openworked pink gold retrograde hand.
As the month ends, the hand returns to the first day and begins its cycle again.
The day display mirrors it on the left side of the dial, but with an important twist.
Its hand travels in the opposite direction, then jumps back to Monday as Sunday gives way to a new week.
That opposing motion gives the dial much of its personality, with the two hands moving at different speeds across matching arcs.
It’s a practical calendar display, but it also gives the watch a kinetic rhythm that’s closely tied to the founder’s watchmaking language.
Astral Blue counters and an openworked calendar dial
The dial is openworked to show the mechanics underneath, but it avoids becoming a bare technical diagram.
Pink gold hour and minute hands reinterpret a Dauphine shape with openworked construction and generous proportions.
They’re paired with golden hour markers set on a varnished mother-of-pearl flange with an azuré texture.
Both the hands and indexes receive SLN treatment, giving the watch a functional layer of low-light readability that isn’t always a given in highly decorated calendar pieces.
The arcing counters are made from mother-of-pearl and finished with nine layers of Astral Blue varnish, then given polished angles.
That same Astral Blue mother-of-pearl appears on the month disc at 6 o’clock, where a slim hand with a vermillion red tip marks the current month.
Nearby, a grey leap-year disc makes the perpetual calendar’s underlying logic visible.
The lower portion of the dial reveals a circular-brushed mainplate in grey, with golden lettering confirming the high complication and the watch’s Geneva origin.
A moon phase display sits above that surface, using an aventurine disc and a domed 18K pink gold moon that has been laser-engraved for texture.
The RD850 makes this more than a case redesign
Roger Dubuis could have leaned on an existing automatic perpetual calendar movement from its recent catalogue.
Instead, the Excalibur Biretrograde Perpetual Calendar introduces the RD850 automatic calibre.
That decision is significant because it positions the watch as a fresh technical statement rather than a familiar complication transplanted into an Excalibur case.
The calibre is produced within the company’s Manufacture and features 16 types of decoration, a reminder that the visual complexity on the dial is matched by traditional finishing work inside the movement.
Roger Dubuis has built much of its reputation on that mix of expressive design and serious Geneva watchmaking, a combination that began with early Hommage and Sympathie pieces and later expanded into full Manufacture capability.
The Excalibur Biretrograde Perpetual Calendar sits neatly at the meeting point of those two instincts.
Details & Specifications
| Brand | Roger Dubuis |
|---|---|
| Model | Excalibur Biretrograde Perpetual Calendar |
| Case size | 40 mm |
| Case material | Pink gold |
| Dial | Openworked with varnished mother-of-pearl flange and Astral Blue mother-of-pearl counters |
| Movement | RD850 automatic calibre |
| Complication | Biretrograde perpetual calendar with day, date, month, leap year and moon phase displays |
| Finishing | 16 types of decoration |
| Hands | Openworked pink gold hour and minute hands with SLN treatment |
| Indexes | Golden hour markers with SLN treatment |
| Launch | Watches & Wonders 2026 in Geneva |
For collectors who know Roger Dubuis through its more extroverted modern pieces, this watch is a reminder that the brand’s theatrical side has always been strongest when anchored by real watchmaking substance.
The Excalibur Biretrograde Perpetual Calendar brings that balance into focus with a compact precious-metal case, a historically meaningful display and a new automatic movement made for the moment.
