Rolex Watches
Rolex Watches: A Century of LuxuryRolex watches are undeniably expensive, and wearing a Rolex watch has become a status symbol. The brand name implies wealth, luxury, and quality. How did Rolex receive this reputation for watch making perfection, and how does the company maintain its status in this day and age of fierce competition and competing technology.
Rolex became a registered brand name in London in 1908. The designer Hans Wilsdorf chose the name because it was easy to pronounce in any European language. By 1910 and 1914, the watch was winning awards from the Swiss and the English for being an extremely precise chronometer, meaning it measured time very accurately. Over the next few decades, Rolex boasted of a lot of firsts for watches. Rolex watches were the first completely waterproof watches, and in 1927, an English swimmer traversed the English Channel with a Rolex Oyster on his wrist, a feat that won Wilsdorf and Rolex attention from the public. In 1931, the watches sported the first Perpetual rotors, which wound the watch automatically, and in 1945, Rolex watches were the first to have the date displayed on the watch face. In the 50s, Rolex created watches that let its wearers dive to 100 feet under water and that let them read the time in two time zones simultaneously. It also began developing its identity as a watch for athletes by sponsoring a 24-hour race at the Daytona International Speedway, which became the Rolex 24. The Rolex brand is now closely associated with certain sports, such as equestrian, motor sports, golf, tennis, and yachting. It also has close ties to the arts. Its first ambassador was the famous soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.
It's easy to see how Rolex gained its reputation for quality early in its development, but how does it maintain its reputation today when so many watch makers have researchers designing the latest watches using advanced technology? Before Rolex introduces a new watch, the company subjects it to a lengthy process of quality control. First, hundreds of prototypes are created. There are aesthetic prototypes, which are hand-crafted, and production prototypes, which are machine tested. Once a new prototype has been narrowed down, its details are entered into a computer, and a virtual version of the watch goes through a series of test simulations similar to crash testing new vehicles. If the prototype fails any of the tests, the design is scrapped. Finally, if the prototype passes the virtual simulations, it undergoes physical testing in laboratories in Geneva. In the laboratories, scientists open and close the clasp repeatedly to watch for signs of fatigue, drop and shake the watch to see if it can withstand agitation, and subject it to salt, water, and air corrosion. If, and only if, the watch passes these tests and many more, then it is produced by Rolex.