PURSUING PRECISION

Rolex Founder Hans Wilsdorf once remarked, "I was convinced that my life's success revolved around precision." The Swiss watch manufacture continues to pursue a perpetual quest for excellence and furtherance of that very same precision

In the earliest years of the 1900s, while there was a definite rise in demand for wristwatches, strapping a timepiece to the wrist was preferred predominantly by women. Regardless of this reality, Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf foresaw that the wristwatch was destined to become an everyday object – for men as well as for women in the coming decades. To take advantage of this, watchmakers had, first, to be able to produce small movements as precise as marine chronometers, the absolute references of the period.

Secondly, the watches needed robust and waterproof cases to protect their movements from external factors such as dust, moisture, splashes and perspiration — essentially they needed to be able to withstand the perils of life itself and thus confirm the watch’s proposed utility. Finally, the wristwatches would have to be able to run for long periods without the wearer’s intervention — which is to say that watchmakers had to come up with movements that would be able to wind themselves. For Wilsdorf, there was no doubt that his brand’s superior watchmaking would benefit the wearer by guaranteeing the performance and reliability of every watch for as long as possible.