Successes in Timepieces, Industry, and Human History.

Rolex’s image comes from a long history of being passionate about new ideas and always trying to be the best. This story is linked to the story of the Oyster, which was the first waterproof wristwatch and came out in 1926. It is a series of groundbreaking successes in timepieces, industry, and human history.

Hans Wilsdorf (1881–1960), the founder of Rolex, had a fiery drive to succeed that runs through the company. Hans Wilsdorf was a visionary genius who was also very good at all the things that help a watch brand grow, such as technology, communication, organisation, and distribution. He was also the head of the company for more than 50 years and set the course for an adventure that led to amazing watches and an unmatched brand. He and his work continue to inspire the company, and it is evident throughout the entire organisation. The businessman’s influence can also be seen in the way the watches look and work, which are based on the original Oyster, which was the first waterproof wristwatch and came out in 1926.

The entrepreneur also had a hand in Rolex’s ability to use its history to keep moving forward and discovering new things. Rolex’s story began in the early 1900s. Hans Wilsdorf was born in Bavaria, Germany, but he learned how to make watches in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. He quickly saw the promise of the wristwatch for the 20th century, even though they weren’t very accurate at the time and were mostly seen as jewellery that women liked. This was during a time when pocket watches were popular.

As long as it could be made accurate, waterproof, strong, and reliable, Hans Wilsdorf thought the clock would become something that both men and women would use every day. He was very smart to see this change coming, which we now take for granted. In 1905, Hans Wilsdorf and his partner opened Wilsdorf & Davis, a business that sold watches in Great Britain and the British Empire. They lived in London, which was the world’s economic and financial capital at the time. The watch parts were made by Swiss partners who were chosen for their skills. One of them was the Maison Aegler in Bienne, which would later become the Manufacture des Montres Rolex S.A.

Hans Wilsdorf thought it was the only company that could make the small, exact movements he needed for his wristwatches at the time. Hans Wilsdorf wanted to show people who were still wary that wristwatches and chronometric accuracy could work together. He did this by pointing out the huge rise in free time and sports. He thought it was important for government organisations to examine his watches. A Rolex wristwatch got the first approval in the world from the Official Watch Rating Centre in Bienne, Switzerland, in 1910. Hans Wilsdorf came up with the name “Rolex” to sign his work in 1908. This happened four years later, in 1914, when a different Rolex model got the first “Class A” award for a wristwatch from the famous Kew Observatory in England. At that time, the Kew Observatory was the world’s most reputable place for measuring watch accuracy. This showed that chronometric accuracy and wristwatches could work together.

The next problem was making sure it was waterproof. If a wristwatch’s case didn’t keep water and dust out, it would be much less accurate and last less time. For Hans Wilsdorf to make the watch waterproof, he would need to use his drive and energy. It was in 1919 that Hans Wilsdorf left England to live in Geneva, Switzerland, where he started Montres Rolex S.A. in 1920. This brought him closer to the Maison Aegler in Bienne, which makes his movements easier, and helped them work together better. Geneva’s name around the world and its long history of making watches also played a big role in his choice.

Hans Wilsdorf’s work to make watches waterproof paid off in 1926 when the Oyster, the world’s first waterproof wristwatch, was released. The case was completely sealed with a clever, unique system that included a screw-down bezel, case back, and winding crown. This gave the movement the best security possible.

The fluted parts on the case back and the rim were there for a reason. It was used with a special tool that Rolex made to screw these parts onto the middle case. Additionally, the fluting gave the watch its unique look and attitude. As early as the 1950s, the Oyster Perpetual collection’s bezels were no longer screwed onto the case. Instead, they were friction fittings. On some models, though, the curved bezel stayed, and it would become one of the brand’s most recognisable design elements.

Rolex made history in the watch business with the Oyster and its completely new waterproof case. Along with his technical knowledge, Hans Wilsdorf had a great way of communicating, which helped the company get off to a great start.

In 1927, Hans Wilsdorf made a huge splash with his creative way of communicating. He chose to put the Oyster to the test by giving it a challenge that would show how strong it was and whether it was waterproof. Because Mercedes Gleitze was going to swim across the English Channel, he gave her an Oyster watch. The watch still worked perfectly after being in the water for more than 10 hours. To mark the achievement and get the word out about Rolex’s skills, Hans Wilsdorf put an ad on the front page of the Daily Mail reporting “the triumphant march of the Rolex Oyster around the world” and the success of the waterproof watch. As a result of this event, the idea of a “Testimonionee” was born, and Rolex began a long and successful relationship with famous people whose achievements show how good Rolex watches are.

In areas as different as travel, sports, and society, these close ties grew stronger over time. They come from the fact that the brand and its Testimonees trust each other a lot. As long as a wristwatch had to be wound by hand every day, its crown had to be unscrewed, which made it less waterproof and made it harder to use. This is why Rolex made the Perpetual rotor, a self-winding system for wristwatches with a free rotor. Modern self-winding methods are based on this one.

The brand first made the Perpetual rotor in 1931 and got a patent for it. It is made up of a half-moon-shaped rotating weight that turns when the user moves their wrist. When this weight turns, it creates kinetic energy that is sent to the mainspring through the wheels of the winding system. The mainspring is automatically wound, and its job is to store and release energy all the time, which makes the watch’s regulating organ more regular and accurate. Most of the time, the winding crown is screwed down because it is only used to set functions or wind the movement by hand if it ever stops. So, the Perpetual rotor helps make the watch waterproof and easier to wear by eliminating the need to manually spin the movement.

In the 1930s, the Rolex crown and Rolesor, two other important parts of the brand’s character, came into play. The Rolex crown, which is the brand’s logo, was first used in 1931. Early in the 1950s, it started to show up on the winding crown instead of the 12 o’clock hour sign on the dials. It first showed up on Rolex faces in the 1930s.

‘Rolesor’ was registered in 1933 as a name for a Rolex watch that was made of both gold and steel. This was first used by Rolex in the 1920s and has since become one of the most recognisable aspects of the brand. In the 1940s and 1950s, Rolex made watches that would quickly become classics for all time. These watches are part of the Oyster Perpetual line. The Oyster Perpetual Datejust is the first self-winding waterproof clock wristwatch with a window on the case that shows the date. It came out in 1945. Hans Wilsdorf thought it was a beauty because it was a very special watch with a specially made Jubilee band that combined all the new ideas that Rolex had come up with up to that point. At first, it was only made for men, but over the next ten years, a version for women called the Lady-Datejust (1957) became available.

The Oyster Perpetual Day-Date was first made in 1956. It was the first calendar watch with a window on the case that showed the day of the week in full, along with the date. Crystal with a Cyclops lens made it easy to read the date. It was only made of 18 ct gold or 950 platinum. Later, this innovation, which is another thing that makes Rolex unique, was added to other models in the Oyster Perpetual line that showed the date. The Day-Date is easily recognisable, especially thanks to its unique President bracelet, which was made just for the watch and is worn by many of the world’s politicians, directors, and thinkers.

When the Oyster was created in 1926, the world became a place where Rolex could test the internal traits of its watches in real life. Rolex has always been able to test the accuracy, waterproofness, durability, and dependability of its watches by giving them to brave travellers to wear in the harshest environments, like on the high seas, in the deepest oceans, on top of the highest mountains, or at the North and South Poles.

The brand is also trying new things with speed. With an Oyster watch on his wrist, Sir Malcolm Campbell was the first person to drive faster than 300 miles per hour (483 km/h) in 1935. He was in his car, Bluebird. In 1947, Charles Elwood “Chuck” Yeager, who was flying a rocket-powered plane and was the first person to break the sound barrier, was also wearing an Oyster. When the watch did both tricks, it sped up very quickly and vibrated very strongly, but neither of them hurt it. Since the 1930s, many trips to the Himalayas have worn Rolex watches. Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa were the first people to reach the top of Mount Everest. They were carrying Rolex watches and on a British mission under Sir John Hunt’s direction. The two men joined a group of truly remarkable individuals whose determination and drive are traits that Rolex highly values.

In the 1950s, Rolex made “Professional” tool-watches because people were becoming more interested in the world around them and in new fields of work like civil flight and underwater research. These watches had features or functions that made them especially useful for activities that had to be done in harsh and often demanding settings that needed strong and reliable gear. The first watch in the series, the Oyster Perpetual Explorer, was made in 1953 after the first climb to the top of Everest. It was followed by the Oyster Perpetual Submariner, which was the first wristwatch for divers that was guaranteed to be waterproof to 100 metres (330 feet) and later to 200 metres (660 feet). It had a rotatable graduated bezel that showed the time of immersion. Rolex released the Oyster Perpetual GMT-Master in 1955. This watch could show both the local time and the time in a different part of the world at the same time, thanks to its extra 24-hour hand and changeable 24-hour graded bezel.

People in the United States know it as Pan Am, and it became the official watch of Pan American World Airways. Rolex released the Oyster Perpetual Air-King in 1958. The model is easy to spot because its name is written on the case in a unique way. Rolex watches were still linked to big achievements.

On January 23, 1960, six people from the United States and Switzerland were on board the bathyscaphe Trieste, which was in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Guam. Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh went down 35,814 feet (10,916 metres) into the Mariana Trench, which is the deepest place in the seas. The Deep Sea Special, an experimental Rolex watch that was attached to the outside, could withstand the huge pressure, which is equal to more than one tonne per square centimetre.

When the bathyscaphe came back to the surface, the watch was still on time, showing that it had been working the whole time. Rolex made the Oyster Perpetual Cosmograph Daytona in 1963. With its mechanical stopwatch movement and tachymetric scale on the crown, this watch can be used to measure time gaps or figure out average speeds.

The brand made the Oyster Perpetual Sea-Dweller in 1967. This watch was made for the first professional deep-sea divers and is waterproof up to 610 metres (2,000 feet). The helium escape valve, a brand-new invention from the same year, was helpful in the case. This valve lets the extra pressure that builds up inside the watch case be released during the decompression phase of saturation diving in a hyperbaric room. In 1960, Hans Wilsdorf passed away. He left behind a lot of important work. In Geneva in 1945, he set up the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation and gave Rolex to it as a gift. So, the company could continue to grow and carry on the ideals of its father without any outside help.

When André J. Heiniger took over as CEO of Rolex in 1963, he continued Hans Wilsdorf’s work. With his many years of experience in the field, this real business planner sped up the growth of the company and strengthened Rolex’s position around the world, making it a famous watch brand around the world. As quartz became popular in the late 1960s, Rolex worked on making the Beta 21, which was the first Swiss quartz machine. It released the Oysterquartz type in 1977, which had a 100% Rolex quartz movement. But the business didn’t believe in the promise of this new technology; they chose not to use new technology and instead stuck with clockwork watches, which are their specialty.

Another group of Oyster Perpetual Professional watches came out in the 1970s and 1980s. Rolex released the Oyster Perpetual Explorer II in 1971. This watch was made for polar travellers and speleologists and had an extra 24-hour hand and a fixed 24-hour graduated bezel that made it easy to tell the difference between day and night. A new Sea-Dweller model, the Sea-Dweller 4000, came out in 1978. It was waterproof up to 1,220 metres (4,000 feet). And in 1982, Rolex launched the GMT-Master II. It was different from the GMT-Master because it had a movement that let the hour hand be set separately from the minute and 24-hour hands.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Rolex worked with organisations in new and innovative ways. great athletes and artists who are known all over the world. After that, the brand promised to support many sports and cultural events for a long time. To honour Oyster’s 50th anniversary in 1976, André J. Heiniger made the Rolex Awards for Enterprise. These awards, which are typically in the form of money, support creative initiatives that seek to understand our world and improve human life.

The Oyster Perpetual Yacht-Master watch was released in 1992. It was a symbol of the close relationship between Rolex and sailing that had been built since the 1950s. In the same year, Patrick Heiniger took over as CEO of Rolex from his father. In the mid-1990s, he led Rolex through a major restructuring and the strategy decision of vertical integration, which meant buying its main suppliers to keep its independence and freedom to be an entrepreneur. Along with this step, the company decided to centralise all of its activities in Geneva and Bienne on four industrial sites that were built or changed to fit the needs.

These sites are scientific gems for making watches and are very big. Because of this, Rolex was able to control the production of all the main parts of its watches, including the movement, case, band, and faces. It also had access to special tools that let it take its commitment to quality even further. Since Rolex was now independent and vertically integrated, it had access to some of the best factories in the world. There, designers, engineers, watchmakers, and other experts could work together to make watches. In this context, the business also chose to build a forge where it could make its own gold metals.

Because Patrick Heiniger asked them to, the brand started the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative in 2002 to help arts and culture grow around the world. This programme pairs talented young artists with a well-known expert in their field so that the two can work together and learn from each other. By encouraging artists from all ages, nations, and fields to communicate with one another, the brand contributes to the transmission of the world’s artistic history.

In the early 2000s, the production sites were reorganised in a way that made the Oyster Perpetual watches enter a new age. Innovations were made in watch design, materials, and production processes by combining traditional watchmaking skills with cutting-edge technology in a way that had never been done before.

Rolex made a new Oyster Perpetual Cosmograph Daytona in 2000. It was a true distillation of their knowledge. After that, the model received a more sophisticated stopwatch movement that the company created and manufactured on its own, along with a Rolex Parachrom hairspring. This mix of niobium, zirconium, and oxygen is up to 10 times more accurate than a regular hairspring in the event of shocks and can stand up to strong magnetic fields. As time goes on, the Parachrom hairspring will be added to the gears of more Oyster Perpetual watches.

The new Oyster Perpetual GMT-Master II from Rolex came out in 2005. It had a slightly different look and came with a Parachrom hairspring and a black ceramic Cerachrom plate in the bezel, which is another patented invention. The Cerachrom insert was designed and made entirely in-house. It is made of very hard, almost scratchproof ceramics that don’t lose their colour when exposed to UV light. The high-tech clay is also harmless and can’t corrode because of the way its chemicals are made. Rolex kept coming up with new ways for watches to work. When it came out in 2007, the Oyster Perpetual Yacht-Master II regatta clock was the world’s first watch with a mechanical memory that can be used to sync the time with your own events. Rolex came up with Ring Command, a patented way for the case and movement to talk to each other, so you can programme and set the time using the rotatable bezel and the winding crown.

The 2008 release of the Oyster Perpetual Rolex Deepsea demonstrates Rolex’s capacity for innovation fully. This watch is waterproof to a depth of 3,900 metres (12,800 feet). This diver’s watch is very durable thanks to the Ringlock system, a patented case design by the company. Huge pressure is put on the 5.5-mm-thick crystal and the RLX titanium case back at great depths. A high-performance compression ring is placed inside the case of the watch to handle this. The Chromalight display was first used on the Rolex Deepsea, which was the first Rolex watch. A luminescent material gives off a long-lasting blue glow, up to two times longer than regular phosphorescent materials. It is filled or covered with hour marks, hands, and an inserted capsule at 12 o’clock on the rotatable bezel.

Bruno Meier led Rolex through a time of change from 2009 to 2011. After that, Gian Riccardo Marini took over the company. This expert on the brand and its goods has been Managing Director of the Italian partner since 2000. He joined the group with 40 years of experience.

The Oyster Perpetual Sky-Dweller was Rolex’s brand-new, very original model that came out in 2012. During its development, this watch was the subject of multiple patent applications. It has a dual time zone that is both easy to read and simple to use, as well as a unique yearly calendar called Saros, which is named after a cosmic event with the same name. The date is shown at 3 o’clock on the calendar, which only needs to be adjusted once a year when February turns into March. The months are shown in 12 holes around the dial’s edge. Ring Command is built into both the Sky-Dweller and the Yacht-Master II. Rolex invented a unique way for the rotatable bezel, winding crown, and movement to work together. This lets the user choose the watch’s features, like calendar (date and month), local time, or reference time, by turning the fluted bezel and then setting them with the winding crown.

Another thing that Rolex did in 2012, because it loves exploring underwater, was work with the National Geographic Society on filmmaker and researcher James Cameron’s DEEPSEA CHALLENGE mission. James Cameron went down by himself in a submarine on March 26, 2012, 10,908 metres (35,787 feet) into the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, southwest of Guam. This is the deepest place in the ocean. A test model called the Rolex Deepsea Challenge was attached to the submersible’s manipulation arm. This divers’ watch was carefully developed and manufactured for the event, confirming Rolex’s skill in waterproofing.

The underwater mission that Jacques Piccard and U.S. Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh led in 1960 is directly related to both James Cameron’s achievement and the Rolex Deepsea Challenge. From 2014 on, Rolex showed off new mechanical movements that were the cutting edge of watchmaker technology. The brand’s model 2236 was first shown that year. The Syloxi hairspring in this movement with a date gives it a power backup of about 55 hours. This hairspring is made of silicon and was designed and made in-house. Its success comes from coming up with new ideas, like making the shape of its coils better and coming up with new ways to fix things. The next year, Rolex released the calibre 3235 (with date) and the calibre 3255 (with day and date).

In 2018, the calibre 3285 (with date and second time zone) came out. The unique Chronergy escapement in these moves, along with the Parachrom hairspring, makes them very reliable while also using very little energy. A new gun shape also helps them. These three types of watches have power reserves that last for almost 70 hours.

These brand-new mechanical movements, which Rolex completely created and manufactured, are excellent examples of technology. During their growth, multiple patent applications have been made for each one. They work very well in terms of accuracy, power backup, ease of use, and dependability. Rolex made the Superlative Chronometer certification, which is its most famous in-house certification for all of its watches, stricter in 2015.

This is an exclusive Rolex approval that only applies to the fully completed watch after the movement has been put inside the case. It guarantees the best performance on the wrist in terms of accuracy, power reserve, waterproofness, and winding itself. A Rolex Superlative Chronometer is very accurate, within −2/+2 seconds per day. This is because the brand’s tolerance for rate variation in a finished watch is much lower than the COSC’s tolerance for official approval of the movement alone. The green seal on every Rolex watch denotes the Superlative Chronometer designation, and it also comes with a five-year worldwide guarantee. Like the people who came before him, Jean-Frédéric Dufour wants to raise Rolex’s profile around the world and carry on a practice that blends history, prestige, and technology.

The brand released two more new movements in 2020 for watches that don’t have a date. These were calibre 3230, which has a Parachrom hairspring and a Chronergy escapement, and calibre 2232, which has a Syloxi hairspring. These watches have power stores of about 70 and 55 hours, respectively.

Ten years after James Cameron’s well-known dive to the Mariana Trench, Rolex created the Oyster Perpetual Deepsea Challenge. It was promised to be waterproof to a depth of 11,000 metres (36,090 feet).

The adventurer and photographer took an experimental Rolex Deepsea Challenge watch with him on his journey. It was attached to the manipulator arm of his submersible.

The RLX titanium used to make the Deepsea Challenge is a grade 5 titanium metal that Rolex chose because it is durable and doesn’t bend or rust. Its case is 50 mm wide, and it has a technical smooth finish with obvious grain that goes around the sides of the case, the edges of the bracelet links, and the sides of the clasp cover. The Deepsea Challenge is the most advanced of all the Rolex divers’ watches. It also proves that the brand is a leader in the field of deep-sea diving watches and that it knows how to make watches that are waterproof and resistant to underwater pressure.

In 2023, Rolex launched the Perpetual line. This line honours the art of traditional watchmaking. It started with the Perpetual 1908, a model based on one of the first Rolex watches to have the Perpetual rotor. Its name comes from the year that Hans Wilsdorf came up with the name “Rolex” to use for his work and registered the brand in Switzerland. One thing that makes the 1908 stand out is its thin case with a clear back that lets you see the technical brilliance and beauty of the calibre 7140.