Pierre DeRoche celebrates its 10th anniversary

On the 19th September, Pierre DeRoche celebrated its 10th anniversary. An opportunity for the youthful brand to look back over a decade punctuated by mechanical innovations that are unique in the world, such as the chronograph with three concentric hands on a single counter, and the fascinating ballet of the Royal Rétro orchestrated by six retrograde seconds hands.

Worth is not counted in years. When Pierre DeRoche first exhibited at Baselworld in 2005, just a year after its founding, its SplitRock model was an instant sensation. Beating at its heart was the first chronograph ever to time the hours, minutes and seconds on the same counter by means of three concentric hands. Read-off was extremely intuitive, notably due to the 60-minute totalizer instead of the usual 30-minute version. Pierre DeRoche would indeed make 60-minute counters its signature. In 10 years, less than 7 different chronographs have enriched the brand’s various collections with this characteristic, along with other horological complications such as flyback, power-reserve and annual calendar functions, to mention but a few.

In 2009, a ballet of six retrograde hands began making heads spin by performing a relay race in ten-second legs. To house this mechanical choreography that is truly unique in the world, the TNT Royal Retro is equipped with a particularly technical case enabling daring variations on materials thanks to its modular design. Having become the emblematic Pierre DeRoche model, the TNT Royal Retro has constantly evolved over the past five years, in turn featuring seven visible sapphire bridges, or eclipsing two of its six retrograde seconds by adding a power-reserve indicator. This year, for the brand’s 10th anniversary, it appears in a slim-line version measuring just 43 mm in diameter. In a nod to the milestone, the «10» hour-marker appears in red to stand out from the others.

Pierre DeRoche is first and foremost the story of a couple: Carole and Pierre Dubois. He hails from a family that has been immersed in mechanical watchmaking across four generations and his great-grandfather founded his own movement company in 1901. Now named Dubois Dépraz, it has remained in the family’s ownership ever since. Carole naturally caught the virus from Pierre and his family.

Carole and Pierre dreamed of and continue to live out the Pierre DeRoche adventure together, to the extent of actually epitomising the brand in its advertising campaigns. This couple beats to the pulse of a highly technical and contemporary take on watchmaking that imparts a boldly distinctive style. These mechanical pulsations can indeed be felt right the way through to the ladies’ models. Far from merely sprinkling a few diamonds on its watches for women, the brands offers eminently sophisticated horological feminine creations such as its GrandCliff Milady Royal Retro. While the principle behind the dance of the six retrograde hands is the same as on the men’s TNT model, the calibre was entirely reworked in 2011 to provide scope for diamond-set bridges forming a flowerbed motif.

 

October 30, 2014