It was the watch launch heard ’round the world. On April 1, following weeks of speculation based on leaked images that went viral on social media, Rolex introduced its first new collection since 2012 at the Watches and Wonders fair in Geneva. Known as the Land-Dweller, the model, available in various precious metal iterations, draws its design inspiration from two historic Rolex models, the 1969 Oysterquartz and the 1974 Oyster Datejust.
But don’t let the aesthetic throwbacks, like the Land-Dweller’s thinner case and integrated flat link bracelet design, fool you. The technical details of the watch reflect the most advanced research happening in the world of mechanical watchmaking today.
After the news came out, scores of people around the trade hailed the model, which boasts an entirely new movement complete with a never-before-seen “Dynapulse” escapement—the mechanism responsible for controlling the release of energy from the mainspring to the hands—as revolutionary.
Top and above: Oyster Perpetual Land-Dweller 40, white Rolesor
“It is by far the most significant Rolex launch of this century,” James Dowling, a collector, author and Rolex scholar in London, tells Gem. “Everything they’ve launched so far this century, like the Yacht-Master and the Sky-Dweller, have been niche products. This is a broad market product. This is a movement that for it to make sense has to essentially replace all of the current movements. You don’t put all this effort into developing a new movement and put it in 100 watches a year. Rolex is a mass producer of watches. So I expect to see this over a period of time—not tomorrow, maybe not even next year—but I would expect that maybe 10 years from now, the Dynapulse will be in every Rolex watch.”
Positioned as the next-gen alternative to the Swiss lever escapement, considered the industry standard for more than 200 years, the Dynapulse escapement is the result of “a huge amount of technical know-how,” Jack Forster, global editorial director of the 1916 Company, a nationwide watch retailer based in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., said. “Without getting too much into the weeds, it relies on some very advanced materials. Everything’s made of silicon. The dimensions of the escapement wheels are very different from what you would expect in a conventional mechanical watch. It’s designed to operate extremely efficiently, with very low inertia and very low friction.”
To non-watch geeks, that means the watch is designed to be more robust, longer-lasting and more precise than any industrialized mechanical timepiece on the market—even watches certified as chronometers, or precision timekeeping instruments. At its press presentation in Geneva, Rolex described the effort to produce the Land-Dweller as “a big leap into the future of watchmaking.”
And industry veterans were quick to agree. “The takeaway is that chronometry is the turf of the future for the A-brands to differentiate themselves from anyone else,” Oliver Müller, the founder of LuxeConsult, a watch consultancy near Lausanne, Switzerland, said. “And the two champions in this league are Omega and Rolex and no one else.” (In 1999, Omega industrialized the co-axial escapement, invented in the 1970s by the legendary British watchmaker George Daniels. The mechanism now powers the brand’s range of “master chronometers.”)
The clear case back on the Land-Dweller
That watchmakers are still battling for chronometric supremacy may surprise anyone who prefers to use a digital device to tell time. After all, it’s been nearly 60 years since people relied on mechanical watches to keep good time.
“Historically, watches have been judged by accuracy,” Dowling said. “The reason you paid more for a Patek Philippe wasn’t because it was more stylish. It was because it was more accurate. And people had got this idea in their heads that accuracy and price are inseparable."
But with the introduction in the 1970s of Japanese-made quartz-powered timepieces, which were more accurate and far cheaper than anything the Swiss were producing, quartz technology, according to Dowling, “essentially democratized timekeeping.”
“Now, I don’t think anybody thinks about accuracy to do with watches,” Dowling said. “Most people wouldn't notice if their watch was a minute a day off. If you don’t miss your train or turn up late to an appointment to your doctors, it’s fine. Everybody has a phone. Nowadays, watches for men perform exactly the same function that handbags do for women. They have a utilitarian function, but their utilitarian function is subsumed by their social significance factor.”
Rolex Oyster Perpetual Land-Dweller 36, 18k 'Everose' gold, with diamond bezel
That then begs the question: Why would Rolex go to so much effort — some watch insiders have speculated that the research and development of the Land-Dweller’s new movement could have cost as much as $1 billion — to perfect the mechanism inside a mechanical watch when its purpose today is more about communicating status or celebrating a personal achievement than actual timekeeping?
Forster echoed his fellow watch experts: “The most important thing for Rolex is to be able to point to their thought leadership and their technical leadership and say, ‘We are at the forefront of innovation in the single most important aspect of precision
watchmaking, which is the escapement and improving its efficiency and improving its longevity between services and improving its precision,’” Forster said.
“I think the reason that addressing these questions in mechanical precision is important to people is because we want to feel like we’re part of something vital and not something that’s entirely backward-looking,” he added. “It’s about wanting to feel like watchmaking as an art and as a science is still a living thing.”
Images courtesy Rolex
