While the Watches & Wonders trade show in Geneva brings an avalanche of new pieces from nearly every watchmaker on the planet, none are quite as eagerly anticipated as the Crown’s. This is despite the fact that Rolex moves at a glacial pace, tweaking sizes or swapping out bracelets and occasionally resurfacing old models. But this year, Rolex took a slightly bigger swing. Here's the big news from the brand at the biggest watch show on earth.
Pretty easy being green
Rolex’s iconic GMT-Master II is best known for its two-tone bezels and the nicknames they inspire. There’s the black-and-blue Batman, plus a whole fizzy drinks aisle in the red-and-black Coke, the red-and-blue Pepsi, and the brown-and-black Root Beer. Today, as part of the industry trade show Watches & Wonders, Rolex is showing off a new GMT with a brand new colour combination: green and black. If we’re taking nickname suggestions, may I submit the Heineken, Jägermeister, or even the Starbucks?
You have to stare a little longer to discover what else is new about this GMT. It becomes clear after a second: it’s a destro, which is watch jargon for left-handed. The crown and the date window have both been flipped to the left side of the case. Practical for lefties and great for the rest of us looking for a more distinctive case layout.
Long live the king
Over the weekend, Rolex released a trailer teasing its new watches that vowed “to move skyward.” Watch sleuths were immediately on the case: another GMT? New Air-Kings? Maybe a variation of the Sky-Dweller? We got the GMT – and then Rolex announced a revamp of the severely underrated Air-King, giving the dial a facelift and adding a set of crown guards (those small protective humps around the winding mechanism).
Falling in love with the new Air-King means appreciating the small stuff. Part of the dial’s refreshed look is a new “balance” of the numerals, Rolex says. This mostly refers to the added zero before the 5-minute marker, so that it now reads “05.” Again, it’s a little detail – but it’s the kind of change that Rolex collectors obsess over. Look no further than the fans of the brand who get into the weeds discussing the “open” 6 and 9 numerals – versions of these numbers with loops that didn’t fully close – the brand used to employ.
The Day-Date gets gaudy
The Day-Date 40 was already a watch that, as Rolex puts it, “epitomised prestige.” And with this new take on it, Rolex is upping the ante on that description. The watch comes for the first time, at least in this size, in platinum with a frosty blue dial, and it's also a fluted bezel in platinum first too. This is about layers of prestige: Rolex calls platinum “the most prestigious metal available.” Who are we to argue with that?
A watch fit for a yacht
Holy cow. The new Yacht-Master is Rolex at its most fun. The Crown already makes the gleaming Rainbow, but this watch takes inspiration from a different celestial wonder: the aurora borealis. There are a lot of ways to translate the northern lights into a watch, but few will delight deep-pocketed collectors like a series of blue, silver and pink sapphires. This also sees a Yacht-Master comeback in white gold (formerly seen in 2019). Safe to say that this watch would fit right in on a yacht. (Also in the lineup: another new Yacht-Master that comes in yellow gold.)
More colourful Datejusts
Rolex continues its streak of Datejusts with vibrant, patterned dials. While last year’s Datejusts were covered in tropical fronds, 2022’s recreate blooming flowers, with diamonds standing in as the pistils. The navy-dial version comes with a standard fluted bezel, but the fun really starts on the olive-green and silver models, which have bezels set with 46 brilliant-cut diamonds.
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