The Roger Dubuis Sympathie Bi-Retrograde Perpetual Calendar

I feel as if I start out a lot of stories these days with misty-eyed reminiscences, but maybe you’ll let me sneak another one in here.

Roger Dubuis is always going to evoke very special and specific memories for me because their factory was the first Swiss watch factory I ever visited, and you know what they say — you never forget your first time. (Roger Dubuis was also kind enough, several years later, to organize a personal tour for me of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, which was and is the biggest, most powerful machine ever built — an interesting contrast to spending time looking at some of the smallest, least powerful machines ever built, although what both have in common, is precision).

The factory visit took place shortly after Roger Dubuis had been acquired by the Richemont Group and the factory at the time reflected the enormous range of watches that the company was producing — it was an enormous building in Meyrin, on the outskirts of the city of Geneva, with production lines were set up to manufacture the huge variety of watches that Roger Dubuis was making.

The brand had evolved very rapidly and in retrospect, not sustainably — the sheer number of different calibers and watches created all sorts of issues in reliability and servicing. (The fact that the company at one point had product lines called “Much More” and “Too Much” says something about the nothing-succeeds-like-excess philosophy of the era). But the watches made in the early days of Roger Dubuis were much more restrained and in many respects, the most direct reflections of the founder’s previous experience as a watchmaker.

Roger Dubuis, the man, was born in 1938, in Corbeyrier, in the canton of Vaud. His watchmaking career started at Longines in the 1950s and he subsequently worked in the restoration department at Patek Philippe for 14 years. He left Patek to start his own watch and clock shop in Geneva, and at one point worked with fellow independent horologist, Jean-Marc Wiederrecht, the founder of complications specialist Agenhor and the creator of the groundbreaking Agengraphe chronograph caliber, on a bi-retrograde perpetual calendar for Harry Winston — the first perpetual calendar with a double retrograde display.

In 1995, with his partner, Carlos Dias, he founded the Société Genevoise des Montres, which would become Manufacture Roger Dubuis. The company’s focus was on producing limited editions in, usually, small numbers (initially, just 28 pieces of each series) and at first there were just two collections: Hommage, which as the name suggests, were very traditional round watches that were an homage to past classical watchmaking; and Sympathie, which had a very unusual case very similar to a rather obscure Longines watch from the 1950s — the 846 5094. (Roger Dubuis never confirmed that the Sympathie was derived from the earlier Longines but the resemblance is unmistakable).

In 2008, Roger Dubuis sold his shares (60 percent) to the Richemont group, although prior to his death at 79, in 2017, he did return as a brand ambassador in 2011. In Roger Dubuis’ obituary in the New York Times, Jean-Marc Wiederrecht said, “Roger and I shared a passion for beautiful horology … he was ‘schooled’ at Patek Philippe at a time when so much of the work was still done by hand.

“Roger was a remarkable human being with an extraordinary talent.”

The Sympathie Bi-Retrograde Perpetual Calendar used the same perpetual calendar module which Roger Dubuis and Jean-Marc Wiederrecht had developed for Harry Winston. The base caliber for the Winston version from 1989 was an F. Piguet movement, but for the Sympathie model, Roger Dubuis used an automatic Longines caliber L990. The L990 is an historically important movement in its own right — it was the last in-house movement made by Longines, although the design was sold to Lemania, who produced it as the caliber 8810, which was used by, among others, Breguet. The layout for the perpetual calendar — which was launched in 1995 — is identical to that of the Harry Winston, with a retrograde display of the day on the left, retrograde date on the right. There’s a moonphase display at 6:00, and a subdial for the month and leap year display at 12:00.

What really makes the watch stand out aside from its technical virtuosity, is the overall design and the unusual case shape. The Sympathie case has a very unusual geometry, combining sensuously curved outlines with sharp inner and outer corners, and an elaborate blend of concave and convex surfaces carried through to the caseback as well as the bezel. The variation in size of the numbers and letters used in the retrograde display carry the visuals of the case design through to the dial, and the whole effect is one of combined classical austerity and an almost Alice-In-Wonderland whimsy — in some respects the design’s always reminded me a little bit of some Cartier watches, especially the Crash.

The watch has sapphire crystals front and back and the front crystal is especially worth noting as it probably represents a significant part of the manufacturing cost of the entire watch. In comparison with the Harry Winston Bi-Retrograde perpetual, which has a round case and round crystal, the Roger Dubuis Sympathie’s crystal follows the flowing concave and convex curves of the case, and would be a challenging crystal design to execute today — much more so in the mid-1990s. Even today the vast majority of watch crystals are predictable round or quadrilateral geometric shapes and the unusual and very charming case and crystal design, along with the classic dress-watch dimensions of the watch overall (37mm, in this instance in white gold with a white dial) gives the watch a very particular appeal, difficult if not impossible to duplicate in any current production watch.

While the watches produced since Roger Dubuis left his company and passed away reflect little to nothing of his original design vision (whatever other appeal they might have) the Sympathie Bi-Retrograde perpetual is an example of a kind of watchmaking very rarely found today. The use of a high grade supplied movement and bespoke module, the distinctive design, and the creative use of different dial fonts as well as the overall layout, speak to a very different and maybe, more romantic time in watchmaking, and express a highly idiosyncratic, individual vision. It happens very seldom that a great watchmaker also produces great design and where many independent watchmakers stumble, is in the design process, but the Sympathie Bi-Retrograde perpetual is a wonderful example of just how good a watch can be, when mechanics and aesthetics are hand-in-hand.