2 minute read
ROLEX
THE CROWN, A SYMBOL OF NOBILITY
Sharmila Bertin
Flipping through the dictionary to understand a phenomenon as obsessive as time, envelops us on a daily basis as much as it does. Luminosity (noun): the quality of something that emits light, reflects a bright light. Synonyms: clarity - brilliance - limpidity. What does this have to do with watchmaking, you may ask? It's probably down to my sensitivity, yet this explanation provided by the Larousse dictionary is for me the one that best translates the feeling I get for a Rolex, the Oyster Perpetual Day-Date 40, one of the year's new releases. Luminous. Brilliant. Magnificent. It's impossible to become lost in the maze of time with it, as it offers a complete overview of the day's progress. It enables you to look back on previous days and look forward to new ones. It
also encourages us to build our own time. The time we have to offer those we love, the time we have to devote to an activity. Much more than a watch displaying the time, the Oyster Perpetual Day-Date 40 is a source of inspiration.
Indeed, how can you not be drawn in by the clarity of its dial? Clear and smooth, delicately bluish, it evokes the tranquillity of a mountain lake in the middle of winter, its calm waves covered with a film of frost. The azure, translucent hue, sometimes turquoise when the light bounces off the sunny surface of this dial, is soothing. A harmony on which the two batonshaped hour and minute hands and the PVD-coated second hand glide with fluidity over the facetted applied hour-markers and Roman numerals.
PLATINUM BODY AND AZURE DIAL WITH DAY AND DATE INDICATION: ROLEX DIGNIFIES TIME.
The entire piece, crafted in white gold, is accompanied by two displays that have ensured the success of this model since 1956, the year of its inception, and impart a different feel to time. At 12 o'clock, a fan-shaped window stretches from 11 o'clock to 1 o'clock indicating, in black letters on a white background, the current day. 26 languages are available, watchmaking being a universal art. At 3 o'clock, the date is displayed, again in the same colour combination, under the Cyclops magnifying glass integrated into the sapphire crystal. Like the banks of a pool of water, a silky-pleated bezel curves around this glacier-like setting.
Respecting the codes laid down for nearly 70 years, the watch that is referred to as the "Presidents' watch" because it has been worn on the wrists of the world's great and good, employs only precious material - yellow and white gold and Everose - sometimes enhanced by the presence of diamonds. This year, for the 40mm case of its DayDate, Rolex opted for a noble metal that is certainly difficult to work with but has a unique brilliance: platinum. The exclusive case, water-resistant to a depth of 100 metres, houses the calibre 3255. This automatic movement equipped with a Perpetual rotor provides an energy reserve of approximately three days. Also in platinum, its three-link President wristband with folding clasp feels like a second skin. A luminous second skin. Brilliant. Magnificent.
