Let Me Roll the Dice

In a watch market shaped by extreme competition and narrowing consumer tastes, even Rolex has to play the game nowadays. Staying ahead of the pack means observing a new set of rules: namely, being busy, creative, inventive. Noisy even. And all the time.

That said, rolling the dice has not come naturally to the Genevan watch giant. Not so long ago, a sideways look by the brand at one of its designs, much less an all-new model, was a rare thing. Instead, the annual spring watch fair reveal would offer almost imperceptible refinements to, or predictable iterations on, existing lines: a new colourway or material, a mill taken off or added here or there. Nip and tuck. No silly business. “This is the first time we’ve applied baton hour markers to a blue dial and paired it with a white gold case,” the PR teams would declare.

For a long time, three decades in fact, playing it safe has worked. With this consistent strategy, aligned to partnerships with a roster of (mostly) well-behaved elite sportsmen and women, Rolex became one of the world’s most powerful brands, and the largest of all the Swiss watchmakers by some distance.

There was one exception. In 2012, the Sky-Dweller arrived, the first new Rolex design since the Yacht-Master 20 years earlier. A piece that looked up where the Sea-Dweller looked down, it was genuinely novel. It had a second time zone display and an annual calendar that indicated the month via 12 apertures tucked above the hour markers. A “Ring Command” bezel governed the way these functions were set. It remains Rolex’s most complicated watch.

But of late, Rolex has upped the ante. In 2023, a year in which luxury watchmaking was flush with buyers looking to spend pandemic savings, Rolex introduced the dressy 1908, a successor to the softly spoken Cellini. That year, it also dropped the “Emoji Puzzle” version of the Day-Date 36 and the “Celebration” dial Oyster Perpetuals, watches that gambled with Rolex’s self-imposed sobriety.

Two years on from that, we have another new design. The Land-Dweller has officially landed, this time with loud echoes of Rolex’s 1970s Oysterquartz models, and powered by what’s expected to be the first of a new generation of bullet-proof automatics.

Before launch came a “leak”, as pictures circulated of the watch worn by Roger Federer. Squat and yet elegant, the Land-Dweller would be an everyday dress-cum-sports watch hybrid, available in precious metals and Rolesor (Rolex’s word for a steel and gold mix), with a choice of 36mm and 40mm cases and a "Flat Jubilee” metal bracelet – a supple five-link chain evolved from Rolex’s heritage design.

Following the launch, a few critics said the industrial feel of the case jarred, but far more polarising was the honeycomb dial motif. While the Land-Dweller was in most respects sensible and untouched by frippery, its dial decoration seemed superfluous. That it was created by a “femtosecond laser” technique (as used on the Palm-dialled OPs of a few years back) didn’t give it any more reason to exist. 

Under that, there was the new calibre 7135, a high-frequency automatic beating at 5Hz – or 36,000vph – and featuring Rolex’s new “Dynapulse escapement”, a regulating system made mostly from silicon that carried seven patents. The net effects: a class-leading marriage of -2/+2 seconds daily accuracy and a 66-hour power reserve.

Some onlookers, however, were convinced. “The case and bracelet aesthetics are stunning,” said James Dowling, one of the world’s leading Rolex experts and author of multiple books on the company. “The dial is a tad too busy for my taste, but the movement proves that even after 120 years, Rolex remains top of its game.”

Paul Altieri, founder and CEO of Bob’s Watches, one of the world’s preeminent secondary market Rolex dealers, noted the paradigm shift. “Rolex doesn’t release new models lightly,” he said. “The Land-Dweller creates a new lane for Rolex with a new name, a clean aesthetic and the potential for what feels like the start of a new chapter.”

This time, Rolex’s own declaration carried more meaning. “This is the beginning of the future of Rolex watchmaking,” said the PR teams. Game on.