![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() "Against that backdrop, building the luxury brand in the US is the division's major priority,'' Pontroue said in an interview in New York at the TimeCrafters trade show.Ībout 45% of Roger Dubuis's business comes from Chinese consumers, including tourists. Shipments to the US, the world's second-largest market for Swiss watches, dropped 33%, while they fell 38% in Hong Kong, the No. Swiss watch exports posted the biggest drop since 2009 in the first quarter, according to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry. The move comes at a difficult moment for the timepiece business. The 21-year-old brand, part of the Swiss Cie Financiere Richemont SA luxury-goods group, opened its first retail store in New York in November and is planning additional locations in major US cities such as Los Angeles and Miami, said chief executive officer Jean-Marc Pontroue. New York: Roger Dubuis, whose watches cost an average of $60,000, is shrugging off a slump in Swiss timepiece exports to the US by pushing ahead with a North American expansion. rogerdubuis.Jean-Marc Pontroue, CEO of Roger Dubuis, stands for a photograph at the TimeCrafters trade show in New York. (Bloomberg photo) That aside, for those who want an amazing bit of timekeeping architecture on their wrist, the 20-piece edition of the Roger Dubuis Exalibur Spider Americas Edition is available at their New York boutique at a price of $167,500, at Roger Dubuis 545 Madison Avenue, New York. I also have to call out that, for all the airy-ness of the design, it still comes in at a fairly hefty 13.75mm thick – guess all those gears have to hide somewhere (hint: it’s vertically). Then again, there must be a reason for it, and I’m sure those who are more well-versed in the world of Roger Dubuis will let me know in the comments below. Speaking of color, that was another somewhat odd choice in my book for a USA-exclusive watch. This version of the Roger Dubuis Exalibur Spider features red and yellow accents – I would have figured something more to the red, white, and blue scheme could have been executed. Expected? Sure, but it could be done well (in fact, swapping yellow for blue on this watch would do it), and seems like a miss on this particular version. Yes, it blends thematically with the movement/dial, but I could certainly go for some contrast – say, fully red hands. That said, you are likely not going to mind having to stare at a watch like the Roger Dubuis Exalibur Spider Americas Edition for a bit longer in order to tell the time. And who knows, maybe in person, those white-filled tips on the hands (one presumes lumed as well) are easier to pick out in the 45mm case than the pictures suggest. I just know that the rest of the hand being dark as it is will make it tricky. With extremely skeletonized watches, like we have here with the Roger Dubuis Exalibur Spider Americas Edition, I am frankly amazed at the work done on the dial and case.īy that, I mean how tidy-looking things are kept, all while keeping the “interesting” bits exposed, and tucking everything else away in layers under the structure that still remains. The tiny machines are amazing, and then when you constrain yourself with these sorts of limits, that does certainly elevate things a good bit. Unfortunately, it also afflicts the watch with something that hits a lot of these skeletons – reduced legibility. Yes, that’s right, watch fans – this is an American-only watch (USA! USA!). Well, ok, anyone can buy it, sure – but they will have to travel over to New York to pick one of the twenty pieces up. Should you find yourself in that position, you will be getting not only the very scooped-out “spider web” look of the hand-wound RD505SQ calibre (which also looks like stars to me), you will also have a flying tourbillon whirling away on your wrist. Limited editions in the world of luxury watches are quite commonplace. When you start talking about watches that are a limited release, and limited to a particular country, things sometimes get interesting. This often takes the form of a watch that is available only through a boutique that resides in said country. That is precisely what we have going on here with a new iteration of the Roger Dubuis Exalibur Spider Americas Edition available exclusively through the Roger Dubuis New York boutique.
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