In my upcoming story we will hop in the Rolex Time Machine and travel back to yesteryear to learn all about Dimitri Rebikoff (pictured above and below) and his amazing lifetime career achievements from many people I have interviewed who were close with and knew him well. This is an amazing story about a man and his machines he brought to life as necessity compelled. The photo and excerpt below on Dimitri Rebikoff were published in 1957.
The Rolex Submariner is one of the most iconic and famous sport watches on earth. It's handsome, rugged, and sporty, yet super versatile.
The late art-deco design language from the early 1950s that still permeates the Rolex Submariner continues to transcend time. The Submariner can be dressed-down with everything from a pair of shorts and a T-Shirt with flip-flops, to being dressed-up with a formal black tie. The photos below of Hollywood actor and producer, Brian Kelly rocking his Rolex Submariner illustrate this point perfectly as they were taken more than a half-century ago, yet they almost look like they could have been taken yesterday...Brian Kelly played Porter Ricks on the 1960 aquatic show named Flipper.
There are many examples of this from the vintage Sean Connery as 007, rocking his Rolex Submariner while he dives, as well as when he wears his Submariner with his white dinner jacket, and you can fast forward to today and see the greatest tennis player in history, Roger Federer wearing shorts and a T-Shirt or a tuxedo, and the coolest thing is anybody and everybody can accessories a Submariner any way they want and truly make it theirs.
One of the great unanswered questions is 'Where exactly did this timeless Rolex Submariner tool watch come from, and how—precisely—did it get its name? And, how is Submariner properly pronounced? This upcoming story will answer these and many of other seminal questions for the first time.
The Life Aquatic
In this upcoming story we will learn all about how the Rolex Submariner began its humble life as a Rolex Explorer variant, which of course, began its Maratime career as an Oyster Perpetual variant, which we witness with the 1929 Rolex Magazine ad (pictured below) for the then avant-garde Rolex "Oyster" tool watch.
Just to be crystal clear, on the simplest level, I am saying the Rolex Submariner evolved from the Rolex Explorer, which had previously evolved from the Rolex Oyster Perpetual.
This early 1929 Rolex Oyster advertisement pictured above appears in my upcoming book series in Volume 1 and is the earliest known aquatic themed Rolex Magazine advertisement I am aware of, but suffice it to say Rolex's founder Hans Wildsorf was always very aware of the role it could play in the life aquatic.
Below we see another magnificent art deco Italian Rolex mermaid Rolex Magazine advertisement which is so beautiful...
Rolex's very first Rolex Magazine advertisement that featured a deep sea diver made its debut in 1948, and featured Italian diver, Adolfo Vanni. Adolfo was a hardhat diver, which means his breathing apparatus was tethered to a ship up on the surface, and in October of 1948 he reached an extraordinary depth 1066 Feet, which is 325 meters, while wearing a Rolex Oyster Perpetual Watch on his wrist. Special thanks to Rolex history researcher, Pierre Jean @therolex_archivist, who discovered this amazing vintage Rolex Magazine ad.
Basel Fair was the biggest watch trade show in Switzerland and was founded in 1917. Rolex first exhibited their watches at Basel Fair in 1939, and in 1942, Rolex flexed their technological prowess when they displayed Rolex watches easily withstanding their environment in a tank pressurized to 120 Meters (394 Feet), as we see in the image below that was published in the Revue internationale de l'horlogerie.
If you look closely, you will notice there is an unusually large watch located on the left side of the tank displayed on the bottom image of the page seen above and it features a black dial. Below we get a closer look at the mysterious Rolex Diving Watch from 1942, and it's located in the bottom left hand corner, and appears to have a black dial.
My best guess is this may be the highly elusive Rolex Reference 2533 with a cushion case that was published in a 1935 Rolex Catalog, but unfortunately today there are no known examples out in the wild, although it has been rumored Rolex has an version of it in their private museum collection in Geneva, Switzerland.
The Rolex Reference 2533 formed the basis for which the original Panerai Watches were based upon, and essentially Rolex took a 47MM Rolex Oyster Pocket Watch as illustrated below, and rotated the case 90 degrees to the right, then soldiered lugs on the case, and removed the hanging watch chain fob as seen below in this image from the ultra-knowledgable horological forensics expert, Jose, at Perezcope.com.
The supreme irony with the oversized 47MM Rolex Oyster pictured above is in many ways it represents the genesis of the Rolex diving watch in the sense it was the first watch destined to conquer the Deep Sea, and when I publish the full version of this article, it will go into great detail on the evolution of this watch model and how it ultimately led to the advent of the Rolex Submariner.
In 1954, Basel Fair radically expanded and modernized their facilities in Basel, Switzerland when they launched Hall 2, which is pictured below in the Ariel photo on the right. If you look closely at the photo below you will see the original Basel Fair Hall 1 on the left.
Basel Fair Hall 1 and Hall 2 pictured above in 1954 in Basel, Switzerland
Basel Fair in 1954 represents and demarcates a seminal year in which classism gave way to modernism in the world of horology—as the world raced ahead into the space age—and Rolex was there front and center with a cadre of new Rolex Sports Tool Watch models as seen in this page from Europa Star published in 1954.
Keep in mind that despite the fact the Rolex Submariner today is considered to be an absolute classic design, it was once considered to be extremely bold and modern. At the time many people ridiculed Rolex sport watches saying they were way too big and heavy.
"All that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed—only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle."
—Nikola Tesla
The Rolex Magazine advertisement seen below for the Rolex Explorer is from 1964 and captures the core essence of Rolex tool watches, as it features the Rolex Explorer, but there is much more to the Explorer than meets the eye.
Where's The Beef?
Where's the Submariner? Show me the Submariner!?!! One of the interesting details I couldn't help but notice in Nicholas Foulkes recently released Rolex History book named Oyster Perpetual Submariner, The Watch That Unlocked The Deep, which I will be reviewing soon here on Jake's Rolex World, is it strangely didn't contain any photos of Dimitri Rebikoff wearing a Rolex Submariner?
This seems like a supreme irony to me as Rebikoff helped bring the Submariner to life, so I thought I would share some images in this preview, and mention I have many more never before seen exclusive photos coming up in my full article. The photo below shows Rebikoff rocking his prototype Submariner back in 1955 as he is working in his back yard on an underwater lighting "Torpedo".
Talent does what it can... Genius does what it must...
Below we see a Rolex Magazine ad featuring the Submariner from 1957 that was taken during prototype testing.
Speaking of books on Rolex History, I have been working for years now on a series of 15 books, or volumes, that cover the entire historical arc of Rolex, and my chapter on Dimitri Rebikoff is featured in VOLUME 3, which is titled, "The Complete History of Rolex MAD MEN: How They Created The International Mark of Success, by JAKE EHRLICH", and we see the cover art for that volume below.
Speaking of Rolex Mad Men, the reason Volume 3 of my book series is titled "Mad Men" has to do with the role the original Ad Men of Madison Avenue played in making Rolex the most reputable brand on earth today.
Pictured above we see Jon Hamm rocking a Rolex Explorer as he poses for a photo from the Mad Men series, and I think it is likely derivative of George Lazenby's 1969 photo below rocking a Rolex Submariner while he poses for a publicity shot from the James Bond movie, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
Many people have been asking me when I plan to begin publishing my upcoming series of 15 volumes on the history of Rolex? Essentially, I have been researching and writing the equivalent of an Encyclopedia on Rolex History, which is a massive undertaking. My goal is to leave no stone unturned, and I wan't to make certain I deliver books that are as magnificent as Rolex itself, and as they say, 'good things take time.' As soon as I have a firm ETA I will post a story here on RolexMagazine.com.
In the meantime, I hope you have enjoyed this teaser for my upcoming story on Dimitri Rebikoff, and when I publish this full story later this year, I am certain it will shed substantial light and immense insight on the genesis of the Rolex Submariner that has never been previously documented—so stay tuned...Special shout out to the Uber talented horological historian, Nick Gould for his invaluable contributions to this story...
Also, thanks to Dimitri Rebikoff for his invaluable design and utilitarian engineering contributions to the Rolex Submariner which he wore his entire career, and we see it on his wrist in the exclusive photo below that has never been published before from the collection of Captain Litt, who worked with Dimitri Rebikoff many years ago. In my upcoming article on Rebikoff, we will see many more action photos of him rocking Rolex Submariner watch models which he kept the time of this amazing life with.
I put together a bunch of cool images that depict what I illustrated in the story above, as they tell a story without me having to write words beyond this: