Rolex SA is a Swiss company, headquartered in Geneva, controlled by the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation , a charitable and non-profit organization. Rolex , according to contemporary documents, cannot be sold or traded on the stock market.

Rolex is the largest manufacturer of certified chronometers, all built in Switzerland in the 4 production sites built between 2000 and 2006: more than half of the production of watches certified by Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres (COSC) belongs to the group.

For over a century, Rolex wristwatches have not only been precise, elegant and reliable, but have also accompanied explorers and champions around the world, from the highest mountain peaks to the deepest ocean depths.

The history of Rolex - said GianpaoloMarini - is inextricably linked to the pioneering spirit of its founder, Hans Wilsdorf.

The story began in 1905, when Hans Wilsdorf, at just 24 years old, created Wilsdorf & Davis in London, a company specialized in the marketing of watches (it imported Swiss mechanisms produced by Hermann Aegler into England and assembled them in luxurious cases created by Dennison and other jewelers of the time who sold the first wristwatches by personalising them with their own brand), imagining ... a timepiece that could be worn on the wrist.

Below we try to summarise the main stages of the technical, commercial and iconographic journey of this great Swiss watchmaking brand.

On July 2, 1908, in Switzerland, Hans Wilsdorf registered his first watch, giving it a short, simple name, easy to remember and pronounce in all languages ​​and that could be harmoniously inserted on the dials and movements. The characteristic 5-pointed crown, the historic symbol of the house, however, was introduced only in 1925.

I tried to combine all the letters of the alphabet, in every possible way. I had a few hundred names at my disposal, but I didn't like any of them. - Wilsdorf said - Until one morning, while I was riding on the upper deck of a horse-drawn omnibus along Cheapside Street in the City of London, a little spirit whispered in my ear: Rolex .

In 1910, a Rolex was the first wristwatch to receive the Swiss certificate of chronometric precision, issued by the Official Watch Rating Centre in Biel. Four years later, in 1914, the British Kew Observatory awarded a Rolex wristwatch the “A” class precision certificate, a privilege that until then had been the exclusive preserve of marine chronometers.

In 1926, Rolex created the first waterproof and dustproof watch: the Oyster , a timepiece with a hermetically sealed case that offered optimum protection for the movement. To demonstrate that the watch was indeed waterproof, in 1927 a Rolex Oyster safely crossed the English Channel on the wrist of a young English swimmer, Mercedes Gleitze. The crossing lasted approximately 15 hours, during which the watch remained in excellent condition.

Then, in 1931, Rolex patented the world's first self-winding mechanism with a Perpetual rotor: a true work of art and the progenitor of all modern automatic watches.

From record to record, we arrive at the post-World War II period, when in 1945 the Oyster Perpetual Datejust was launched, the world's first waterproof self-winding wrist chronometer to display the date in a window on the dial. Equipped with a Jubilee bracelet specially created for the occasion, the Datejust is extremely elegant and immediately recognisable by its fluted bezel, and is the cornerstone of the Oyster collection. Born as a men's watch, in the decade following its launch it was also available in various women's models.

In the early 1950s, Rolex developed watches that could be truly professional instruments, whose functions went far beyond simply telling the time. They were designed with new professional activities in mind, such as deep-sea diving, aviation, mountaineering and scientific exploration. These instruments met with great enthusiasm and became known as the watches of impossible feats. The expedition led by Sir John Hunt, who reached the summit of Mount Everest in 1953, for example, was equipped with Oyster Perpetual watches, which became an icon. Then in 1953, the Submariner was launched, the first diving watch waterproof to a depth of 100 metres, with a rotating bezel that allowed divers to monitor their dive times. With the development of intercontinental flight in the 1950s, airliners began to move between time zones ever more rapidly. It then became of primary importance to know the time in different places in the world simultaneously. It was the beginning of the so-called “jet age”, the era of long-distance flights, and Rolex responded to the challenge of time with a new model: the GMT-Master, created to meet the specific needs of airline pilots. Its distinctive feature is the two-tone bezel that allows the wearer to distinguish the hours of the day from those of the night.

In 1956, the Oyster Perpetual Day-Date was born, the first wristwatch to display the date and day of the week in full in a window on the dial.

This brings us to the Milgauss , presented in 1956, created to resist magnetic fields of up to 1000 gauss and meet the needs of the scientific community: an internal bell, made of special ferromagnetic alloys and composed of two parts, one screwed to the movement and the other to the case, protects the Milgauss movement from magnetic interference.

Through a series of extremely rigorous tests carried out throughout the 1950s, Rolex succeeded in creating a watch capable of withstanding the most extreme external conditions, including those of the Challenger Deep, the deepest point of the Mariana Trench. In 1960, the experimental bathyscaphe Trieste successfully dived into the Mariana Trench, the deepest depression in the world known to man. Led by Lieutenant Don Walsh, accompanied by Jacques Piccard, the bathyscaphe Trieste set a record in the history of deep-ocean diving.

In 1963, the Cosmograph was launched, a new-generation chronograph that was immediately given an iconic name: Daytona . Robust and waterproof, conceived as a cutting-edge instrument for endurance drivers, the Cosmograph Daytona features a chronometric scale on the bezel for measuring average speed.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Oyster and pay tribute to those who have the courage and determination to tackle the great challenges of contemporary society, Rolex has created the Rolex Awards for Enterprise : a series of prizes designed to support new or ongoing projects, carried out anywhere in the world, to improve the living conditions of local populations or to protect environmental and cultural heritage. The projects awarded by Rolex touch every aspect of human life and improve the knowledge or living conditions of the planet's inhabitants.

Rolex continues its research, unveiling ever new and innovative models, such as the Oyster Perpetual Sky-Dweller, a technological masterpiece designed for great travellers. Inside its imposing 42 mm case, it offers a second time zone that is as intuitive to read as it is simple to use, and a particularly innovative annual calendar called Saros, in reference to the astronomical phenomenon of the same name, which inspired it, and which requires only one date correction per year. To allow the various functions to be adjusted simply and quickly, the Sky-Dweller also features an innovative interface: the Ring Command rotatable bezel.

On March 26, 2012, filmmaker and National Geographic explorer James Cameron descended into the Mariana Trench, completing the deepest solo dive of all time, the only one since the two-man Trieste in 1960. Only one passenger took part in both journeys: a Rolex watch.

Finally, since 2013, Rolex has been the official timekeeper of Formula 1.

John Scotti

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