...Rolex Studio Shot Of The Day...
Rolex Datejust
Monday, January 15, 2024
Saturday, January 13, 2024
Rolex Wrist Shot Of The Day Kevin's Pre Rolex Daytona
...Rolex Wrist Shot Of The Day...
Kevin's Pre Rolex Daytona
[Stainless Steel: Small Pushers: Telemeter Scale]
Friday, January 12, 2024
Wednesday, January 10, 2024
Donald Rumsfeld: 1974 Rolex Datejust
...Rolex Political Tool Watch...
Donald Rumsfeld
13th and 21st U.S. Secretary Of Defense
1974 Rolex Datejust
Monday, January 08, 2024
The Hunt For The Earliest Rolex Submariner Ad 1954 Rolex Submariner Ad
The Hunt For The Earliest Submariner Ad
1954 Rolex Submariner Ad
If you are a regular reader of Jake's Rolex World, you know I am working a series of books that cover the entire history of Rolex. One of the subjects I cover in great detail in the books is the genesis of the Rolex Submariner which remains one of the most icon watches in history. In particular, I am fascinated with the really early Rolex Submariner advertisements.
Above we see a very early ad that was originally published in the Tampa Morning Tribune on November 25, 1954, and it is filled with all kinds of fascinating detail, including the fact the first Rolex Submariner retailed for $150!?!?!?!
Also, we see the correct pronunciation of "Sub-Marine", which means the model was correctly pronounced Sub-Marine-er. Below is the upcoming book cover of the volume that goes into great detail on the origins of the Rolex Submariner:
Sunday, January 07, 2024
Rolex Coolness: John Travolta...
...Profiles In Rolex Coolness...
John Travolta
An Amazing Career with Rolex Keeping The Time Of His Life
John Travolta is one of the most famous and successful actors in history, as well as being a cinema producer, dancer and singer. He was also an Ambassador for the Brietling brand of watches, but before that, he wore Rolex watches as seen in the photos below.
John Travolta has worn many different Rolex watches in his far ranging career. It the photos above, we see him wearing a stainless steel Datejust, and in the photos below we see him wearing a yellow gold Rolex Day-Date.
John Travolta is pictured below with his arm around Marilu Henner.
Marilu Henner is an unusual woman, when it comes to her amazing memory skill as witnessed in the videos below.
In the photo below we see John Travolta wearing his yellow gold Rolex Day-Date, standing in between Sylvester Stallone and Chevy Chase. I always like seeing photos of people together that all wear Rolex, which is the case below.
John Travolta is pictured below wearing in the 2016 movie titled "The People V. OJ". It is ironic that John Travolta wore an Everose Rolex Daytona with a ceramic bezel, as he played the role of O.J. Simpson defense attorney, Robert Shapiro. The historical 'continuity error' challenge is that this Rolex watch model did not exist back in the 1995 :-0
An Amazing Career
John Travolta's career has been absolutely amazing. He began starring on the 1970's TV show, Welcome Back Kotter where he played Vinny Barbarino which ran from 1975 to 1979.
Saturday Night Fever
1977
John Travolta went on to star in the blockbuster film, Saturday Night Fever, and followed up by starring with Olivia Newton-John in the blockbuster, Grease.
The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack broke multiple record industry records and became the highest-selling record album in recording history, by selling more than 40 million copies, and to this day it remains one of the top five best-selling soundtracks of all time, and to this day it is believed to be in the top 10 best selling albums of all time, world-wide.
Grease
1978
Grease was another mega-hit that starred John Travolta, and Barry Gibb who was the lead singer for the Bee Gees wrote the title song for the Grease soundtrack which Frankie Valli performed, which went on to become the number 1 song on the billboards.
Saturday, January 06, 2024
Early 1960s Rolex Ad Celebrating 700,000 Officially Certified Swiss Chronometers
Early 1960s Rolex Ad
Celebrating 700,000 Officially Certified Swiss Chronometers
Putting together the pieces of the Rolex history puzzle over the years has been absolutely fascinating for me. Doing so is kind of like putting together a jigsaw puzzle–you begin by separating all the edge pieces and you figure out how to assemble them to form the frame, then you work your way inward, toward the center, and complete the puzzle.
This early 1960s ad was likely created just after Hans Wilsdorf's death. I don't have the exact date, but I would guess it was probably around 1962-1963. It is fascinating to note Rolex talks about how it took them over 50 years to produce their 700,000th Officially Certified Chronometer. Ironically, Rolex makes more than 700,000 Officially Certified Swiss Chronometer a year now!!!
Friday, January 05, 2024
Callas at One Hundred
Wednesday, January 03, 2024
New Titanium Rolex Yacht-Master Review
New Titanium Rolex Yacht-Master Review
Tuesday, January 02, 2024
The Future at Rolex: Predictions for the Long, Long Term
THE FUTURE AT ROLEX
Rolex Predictions for 2024
...and the Long Term
(Rolex and AI)
First, a review of my 2023 predictions. How did I do? I wrote the biggest factor of 2023 will depend on China's economy as it reopens post-Covid.
That ended up being an accurate prediction; the luxury market continues to be tied to China's economy, the world’s second largest. As the China's economy fell short of expectations, even after it reopened post-Covid, so did the overall luxury-watch market which has been unable to reverse, by Jan. 1st, 2024, a two-year downward trend.
More American companies are pulling away from China and focusing towards India, as I wrote here. Rolex should expect a boom there.
I also wrote about Rolex's switch to a new generation of movements. “A few models remain,” I cautioned in my prediction pre-Watches and Wonders, and named the Milgauss, Cellini, Daytona, and Yacht-Master II.
The verdict: The Milgauss and Cellini were both discontinued in 2023. The Daytona was updated with a new movement. I believe we will see a new Yacht-Master II in 2024; Rolex has recently filed a fascinating new patent for a new countdown chronograph movement (as pictured below).
For 2024, I am predicting the secondary market will continue to soften as the Crown catches up with deliveries. Rolex has decided to set up temporary manufacturing sites, such as in Romont and Villaz-Saint-Pierre, which will be operational until the new facility in Bulle launches in 2029.
But in the longer term, artificial intelligence will make its way into watchmaking — and not just in watch design or engineering but also online customer service.
AI-driven digital assistants are quickly becoming pervasive while making their ways into our lives, for better or worse, and it's a matter of months, not years, until luxury brands like Rolex will embed machine-learning tools into their websites. I can picture an AI-driven digital assistant that will help me choose a model, but also check on availability, including CPO availability, at local boutiques.
I've been writing about the brand since 2017, and I've enjoyed seeing the watchmaker increasingly embrace the internet. Rolex created a Twitter account in early 2012 but didn't tweet for the first time until Dec. 2018.
Today Rolex’s high-quality, engaging content on social media appears almost daily. I predict Rolex in 2024 will be active on TikTok, the fastest growing platform with more than 1 billion active users that has outstripped Twitter and Snapchat.
On the web, Rolex says it currently assists retailers to increase visibility in search engines. It developed a so-called “Rolex e-corner” for retailers' websites that can be easily set up by copying and pasting source code provided by the brand. Rolex says it provides images, texts and technical specifications allowing retailers to personalize content relating to their points of sale.
For Jean-Frédéric Dufour, Rolex's CEO, the internet is a power to harness, something he has long believed. In a 2012 video I’ve unearthed, while Mr. Dufour was still head of Zenith, he touted digital technologies as being the future: “If you have a good site, a good Facebook page, and new media, you'll reach an amazing amount of people,” he said in French. “I truly think it is the communication tool of the future.”
More recently, Rolex has been experimenting with online sales as part of its certified pre-owned program. The program, which started a year ago, allows official retailers to sell CPO Rolex watches online.
2023 marked the first time I used artificial intelligence, and I suspect the same is true for a lot of people. I felt a bit like the Little Prince in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's famous novel. But instead of asking a downed aviator to “please draw me a sheep,” I asked ChatGPT to please “draw me the best looking Rolex ever.” I was excited — and also confused — by the results that formed on my screen 10 seconds later, as seen below.
The power of machine learning which gathers terabytes’ worth of data across the world can be a tool for a watch designer; it can tell him or her in a few short seconds what is universally pleasing. I'm sure AI is learning from this blog as we speak.
I see a future where AI could potentially be a tool incorporated by watch brands. The design generated by AI can be a great inspiration, or canvas — definitely not the final product — for a design team. Machines and humans working side-by-side in a Rolex lab can create a new timepiece that I can only dream of.
We will never truly eliminate human designers as they’re able to give us the Pepsi GMT, the Paul-Newman dial, the Kermit, the Tiffany-blue OP. In short, the unpredictable, the un-codable, the un-data-gatherable.
Check out the Rolex designs ChatGPT drew for me in just 10 seconds. While many details leave to be desired, the universally appealing design cues could be great canvas for designers at Rolex. I find the lighting on these pictures astounding. You can't help but love these watches — watches that do not exist; they’re the figment of a machine's “imagination.”
We are at the beginning of a huge technology transition right now. This is an exciting and confusing time, full of uncertainty about how AI will shape the years ahead — but it’s still clearer than ever how AI can be used to improve not just designs but also horological innovations.
Can AI help a brand design a perpetual calendar that is thin and accurate to -1/+1s a day? Or the most comfortable bracelet ever that lets the wearer forget he has a watch on?
AI will make its way into watchmaking, like the internet did before that. If Rolex can be sued today for not selling watches online, an idea appalling just decades ago, it is difficult yet absolutely fascinating to imagine what Rolex will look like a decade from now.
Even if 2024 will prove to be another challenging year for the watch industry, I can’t help but feel optimistic about the future when I think about how AI can be used to get game-changing technologies for better-designed and better-built watches than ever before.
Danny Crivello
danny@rolexmagazine.com
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