The importance of Daniel Roth in today’s success of independent watchmaking cannot be underscored enough. By creating his eponymous brand in 1987 after having worked at Audemars Piguet and creating what is contemporary Breguet, he was one the earliest master watchmakers who decided to go independent and put his vision and talent in a watch with his name on the dial.

He immediately created an unmistakable signature design with the ellipsocurvex case shape, hands with pointed tips and dials with a horizontal or Clous de Paris guilloché patterns.
Roth’s perpetual calendar was conceived originally with Philippe Dufour – whose workshops were only a stone’s throw away from Roth’s Vallée de Joux ateliers. The goal was to create the world’s first instantaneous perpetual calendar whereby all the calendar functions would jump to the next increment at the same time at midnight.
However, due to the weight of the day and month discs the movement would require too much energy and this proved technically challenging and as such Roth retained the more classical “semi instantaneous” system for this watch.

A superb example of Roth’s talent, the present perpetual calendar entices due to its good looks, legibility, rarity and ultimate historical importance.