Perpetual Elegance

A closer look at the dressed-up Rolex Perpetual 1908 collection, which offers another side of the watchmaker.

- WORDS FARHAN SHAH PHOTOS ROLEX

THE WORLD KNOWS Rolex for the Submariner, the Cosmograph Daytona, and a plethora of other models that have become part of watchmaking lore. But before these icons came to define the brand, there was a singular innovation that made everything possible: the Perpetual rotor. It was a simple invention yet made perpetual timekeeping possible with the daily motion of the wearer's wrist going through their day. A free-moving weight, it could rotate 360 degrees, which automatically wound the mainspring—the watch’s power source. Introduced in 1931, it revolutionised timekeeping. Wearers no longer needed to wind the crown manually every day.

The simple act of wearing the watch meant that it would keep time, as its name suggests, perpetually.

It is the Perpetual rotor that inspires Rolex's dress watch rendition, the Perpetual 1908. The number pays homage to the year that founder Hans Wilsdorf registered the brand in Switzerland.