Color is super important to me, almost always at least. So it is surprising, maybe only to me, that one of my favorite watch designs is the Rolex Explorer. Just for starters, the history is cool to me, I mean, it was worn on mount Everest! I love mountains (to an extent). As always, this isn’t a review, just a my opinions on a watch.
This watch is so great from a design point of view. I love the Explorer’s 3,6,9 layout on the solid black dial, the lugs are simple but still iconic, and you can buy it in a diameter of 36 millimeters. In my opinion it is the perfect tool watch design, mainly because it’s not a super militaristic design compared to other field watches.
The attention to detail is so incredible, but you would expect that for the price. The dial, as boring as it is, looks great when you get up close, which in my case means looking at macro photography online. The font, which I don’t think looks amazing, is iconic and not the worst font that exists. The clasp is really nice (apparently) and Rolex has their own steel coating.
Okay, so what’s the problem? The watch is expensive, like more than 7 thousand dollars. That frustrates me, Rolex built their name off of affordable functional watches, compared to Omega who just wanted to make nice watches. In these last fifty years or however long Rolex has become a luxury watch brand. So as much as I love the Rolex Explorer, I hate that such a great tool watch costs so much. Maybe bring the price down to $2,500 and I’d be interested…
Watching Watchmaking is written of Ribbon Eichler. © 2024. All Rights Reserved.
