The Mechanics of a Moving Sky
Roger Dubuis debuts its Rarities programme, a vehicle for one-offs and client-led projects with the Moonlight Excalibur, a watch that feels like a technical and visual exercise pushed to its limits. The RD115 calibre (is the star of the horological show) sits literally at the centre of it. The tourbillon is placed in the middle of the dial, forcing everything else to work around it. Traditional hands are abandoned in favour of rotating discs for the hours and minutes, which circle the movement rather than point across it. It is not the easiest way to display time, but it is coherent. The mechanics behind it are ingeniously thought through, with a reworked gear train and a separate system to disengage the discs when setting the watch. At the heart of the Roger Dubuis Excalibur Moonlight, a hand-engraved lunar tourbillon anchors a celestial stage of rotating Murano-glass discs that orbit the dial to track time through luminescent constellations. All of the above could have resulted in a lot of visual noise, but Roger Dubuis has handled it with intelligence and panache. The dial is built...
