At Dubai Watch Week, Roger Dubuis unveils the final chapter of its “La Placide” series — a serene, deeply personal homage to the Maison’s late founder, wrapped in platinum and shaped by the calm of a desert night.
Roger Dubuis doesn’t often do subtle. But when the Maison does lean into restraint, it becomes something far more evocative. The brand’s new Hommage “Sukoon Al-Layl” — unveiled as a single, unique piece at Dubai Watch Week 2025 is the purest example yet. It’s a closing act that brings the “La Placide” tribute series to its end, tying together Roger Dubuis’ heritage, the serenity of its founder, and a quiet reverence for Middle Eastern culture.
The “La Placide” series has been Roger Dubuis’ way of honouring the man behind the name — a watchmaker known not only for his technical brilliance but for his gentle temperament. “Placide” was his nickname long before he was a Maison founder, a nod to the calm, reassuring presence he carried throughout his career.
The Sukoon Al-Layl is the final chapter of that tribute. Its name translates to “serenity of the night,” and it immediately sets the tone for what this piece is meant to be. Roger Dubuis’ team looked to the stillness of the desert after sundown — the silence, the clarity, the way the world seems to slow beneath a sky full of stars, and used that landscape as both canvas and inspiration.
It’s also a direct nod to the region hosting its debut at Dubai Watch Week, as well as to Mr. Dubuis’ lifelong passion for astronomical complications. His favourite among them was the Perpetual Calendar, so it served as the natural anchor for this final homage.
Similar to the Hommage to La Placide unveiled a week ago, the watch measures 38 millimetres and is full platinum: the case, bezel, crown, caseback and even the triple-folding buckle. The material was chosen as it was about capturing the pale, luminescent glow of a moonlit horizon. Paired with an Astral Blue calfskin strap sewn with rarely seen platinum thread, it takes the meaning of a platinum watch to another level. Even the buckle and crown feature the original Roger Dubuis emblem, reinforcing the link back to the founder’s earliest days.
The dial is textured and sculpted with a sense of depth; it feels like a landscape more than a surface, and for me, evokes that look of wind patterns in the sand in the dunes, thanks to the main plate, finished in Astral Blue lacquer, which carries guilloché waves. As the light shifts, this layer moves from deep midnight to the faintest suggestion of dawn. Mother-of-pearl forms the outer flange and the calendar displays, recalling one of Dubuis’ early signatures.
Four Arabic numerals punctuate the dial, a gesture of respect to Middle Eastern culture, and it features 18K white-gold hands. Near the base, the moonphase sits on a bed of blue aventurine, sparkling like a desert sky. Two domed yellow-gold moons move across it, the only elements cast in this metal, and a subtle nod to the Maison’s earliest Perpetual Calendars.
A Movement Fitting Of A Founder
Powering the Sukoon Al-Layl is the RD1472 calibre, a movement that is both a revival and a progression. Roger Dubuis returned to its early in-house achievements — the RD14 automatic calibre from 2004 and the biretrograde Perpetual Calendar module RD72 from 1999 — and brought them back to life through a blend of original components and newly manufactured parts.
The architecture is unmistakably classic Dubuis, featuring swan-neck and pistol bridges that draw directly from traditional pocket-watch language. It’s a mechanical love letter to the craft that shaped the founder’s early years. The biretrograde Perpetual Calendar displays the full suite — day, date, month, leap year and moonphase — and is brought into modern standards through extensive reworking of plates, levers, bridges and springs.
The movement consists of 307 components and is finished to meet the Poinçon de Genève’s stricter 2012 criteria. Through the sapphire caseback, a newly produced 18K pink-gold rotor adds a warm, subtle contrast to the cool platinum exterior. It showcases the amazing finishing as well, with no less than 15 different finishes: wheel-bevelling, tool-bevelling, rounding, circular graining, snailing, Geneva stripes, mirror polish, teeth polish, tip polish, perlage, truing, internal drawing, external drawing, frosting, and burnishing.
Initial Thoughts
With the Hommage “Sukoon Al-Layl”, Roger Dubuis closes the “La Placide” series and does it in the right way. A single piece. A one-of-one creation that channels the founder’s calm character through material, movement and metaphor. And I do love a good metaphor.
Rather than the large, bold, ostentacious pieces we’ve come to know and expect from Roger Dubuis, the Hommage to La Placide series is the Roger Dubuis of old, and a move from the brand that is what I feel collectors want to see. Refinement, class, and technical ability wrapped up in one perfect package. Yes, I love the Excaliburs, but I feel the size and nature of these incredible pieces overshadow what is inside. The Hommage to La Placide, and this, the “Sukoon Al-Layl” are what we have been waiting for.
Reference: RDDBHO0611
Specifications:
- Dimensions: 38mm case diameter x 11mm thickness
- Case Material: Platinum case with open caseback
- Dial: Multilevel dial – Guilloché with “Astral blue” lacquer, Mother of Pearl Flange, Mother-of-pearl with transferred texts on the calendar, moonphase with blue aventurine disc and domed 18k yellow gold moons
- Movement: Automatic Cal. RD1472 with perpetual calendar (Biretrograde day/date, month, leap year displays) & moonphase complications
- Power Reserve: 48h
- Beat Rate: 4Hz (28,800VpH)
- Water Resistance: 30m
- Strap: Calf leather strap, interchangeable thanks to spring bars with spurs, Platinum, triple folding buckle