Introducing Pierre DeRoche

For more than four centuries in Vallée de Joux in the Jura Mountains of Switzerland has been at the epicentre of Haute Horology. With artisans, engineers and craftspeople through the generations dedicating their lives to creating marvels of precision engineering, accuracy and beauty. While many famous watchmaking names have been absorbed into large corporations, or indeed vanished entirely, the Dubois family have flourished, with Dubois-Dépraz celebrating more than 120 years of the creation and production of complicated movements on the shore of Lac de joux.

From this family tradition of watchmaking comes Pierre DeRoche – founded in 2004 by the great-grandson of Marcel Dépraz (co-founder of Dubois-Dépraz), Pierre Dubois and his wife Carole – an atelier focused on grand complications, that utilise the modular movement design for which Dubois-Dépraz is famous, and designs that break through the boundaries of watchmaking creativity.

As they head towards the brand’s 20th Anniversary, the team at Pierre DeRoche have granted themselves the luxury of refining a focused collection based on functions and complications that are either undervalued or not normally placed at centre stage.

This has led to two core collections – the elegant and refined GrandCliff, and the strong and sporty TNT.

While complications within the GrandCliff and TNT collections are plentiful there are two that we’re going to focus on today that are both uncommon, and distinctly Pierre DeRoche – the Royal Retro, and the Annual Calendar.

Pierre DeRoche TNT Royal Retro 43 Diablo

Introduced in 2009, the Royal Retro is the first movement in the world with 60 seconds in 6 retrograde second hands and is available in both sporty TNT and elegant GrandCliff collections.

Our choice of the Royal Retro models on offer is the 43mm steel, titanium and black carbon case (featuring itr2 bezel) Pierre DeRoche TNT Royal Retro 43 Diablo. Water resistant to 100m, with a screw down crown and anti-reflective sapphire crystals front and back, the TNT Royal Retro 43 Diablo is limited to just 101 pieces and expresses its fiery temperament through some hot red accents on the dial, strap and hands.

Building on a movement known for its power and precision, the Royal Retro is focused on providing watchlovers with a fascinating additional mechanism. Where the retrograde hands are moved by gears that are powered by the central axis of the movement and returned to zero by a strip spring – all clearly visible under the dial.

Pierre DeRoche GrandCliff Annual Calendar

The Annual Calendar is one of the holy grails of watchmaking – A calendar complication that only requires correction once a year on the 1st of March.

Presented in a 41mm polished and satin finished stainless steel case, the Pierre DeRoche GrandCliff Annual Calendar makes use of a Dubois Dépraz module to deliver this refined complication in a modern, yet elegant way.

The black textured dial. with date window at 3 o’clock, is enhanced by an easy to read month indicator set into a subdial at 8, and polished stainless steel hands and hour markers.

Equipped with anti-reflective sapphire crystals front and back, the GrandCliff Annual Calendar is water resistant to 50m, and fitted with a black cordura strap with stainless steel clasp.

The Pierre DeRoche GrandCliff Annual Calendar is available now for: € 9,370.

Learn more about Pierre DeRoche and their fascinating complications, at Montredo!