ROLEX

Visiting the Rolex booth is really quite something, it’s the classic 4-S configuration: spacious, sophisticated, stylish and serviceable. The year’s collections were also well in keeping with their surroundings.

There was the return of a classic oldie – the Oyster perpetual GMT-Master II – or perhaps it would be more correct to say the updating of a Rolex icon. No longer a 38 mm timepiece in stainless steel with its hollow links, but a 40 mm version in white gold with that eye-catching red and blue bezel in Cerachrom, a patented process that creates a single bulk-coloured component in two colours.

Oyster Perpetual GMT-Master II by Rolex

This innovative process produces a scratch-resistant red ceramic disc and then modifies the chemical composition of each grain to change the red to blue over half of the bezel with a distinct separation of the two colours which is then diamond polished. The 24-hour index is engraved in the ceramic and coated with platinum using PVD.
The watch is equipped with a 3186 mechanical movement with a bi-directional self-winding rotor with a 48-hour power reserve; there are central hours, minutes and seconds hands, a 24-hour hand with an arrow head for the second time zone, with the classic magnified date window at 3 o’clock and stop-seconds for precise time setting. There is a black lacquered dial with long-lasting ‘chromolight’ appliqué hour markers and hands, an Oyster three-link bracelet with polished and satin-finished links and a folding safety clasp.
If you’ve been lusting after a Rolex GMT-Master, this new version now retails at 36,500 Swiss francs.

Cellini Dual Time by Rolex

In the Cellini Collection there were new versions of the classic Cellini Time, Cellini Date and my personal favourite, the Cellini Dual Time – which comes with either black or silver dial with a ‘rayon flame de la gloire’ guilloche pattern, with a 39 mm case in either 18 carat white gold or Everose gold with a domed and fluted double bezel.
There are hour, minute and seconds hands with a second time zone at 6 o’clock with a day/night indicator, a silver or black guilloche dial with 18 carat white gold hour markers and hands. This wonderfully elegant timepiece is equipped with a self-winding mechanical movement with a 48-hour power reserve.

The jewelled Datejust Pearlmaster 34 and Cosmograph Dayton were also something to behold, but more about those in the article on high-end jewellery watches.