A Long-Term Relationship

Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf’s enduring foresight has ensured that each watch is designed and built to last, long after it has left the boutique. Here’s how

- Caroline Suganda

As with anything in life, if you want something to serve you well, you must do your part to care for it. Whether it’s a car, a grand piano or a watch, the seed of maintenance that you sow will reap benefits and a prolonged life. A watch is one of the most fascinating illustrations of this point. For example, a watch such as the Rolex Oyster Perpetual is fitted with a self-winding mechanical movement, and does not rely on batteries or electronics to power it. Yet, it can last for years by simply relying on the moving parts that make up its complication, which is powered by the energy provided by the motion of the wearer, rather than a quartz battery or manual winding. As the wearer moves their arm, the rotor swings and sets the gears in motion, thus automatically winding the spring.

It’s not hard to comprehend how complicated such movements can be, or to acknowledge how imperative that moving component maintains the highest levels of precision and accuracy.

A watch deserves a good fine-tuning to continue ticking reliably — perhaps every five to six years, or whenever its accuracy is compromised. The idea of handing over such a valuable object to a stranger, however, might be daunting, especially so when it comes to an older timepiece that is rare or out of production.