Rolex makes some interesting, if slight, moves with this year’s releases, and most significantly the Crown has dropped an all new Land-Dweller model with an integrated-bracelet.
When times are good and watch sales are booming, we’ve seen Rolex take more risks than this year—such as in 2023 when the Crown released playful, psychedelic dials on the classic Day-Date and Datejust. Last year, as pandemic collectors chilled and the market cooled, Rolex offered more subdued models, and we celebrated Rolex acting like good old Rolex again.
With a recent decline in exports of Swiss watches, as well as a level of uncertainty currently permeating the global economy, we might expect Rolex to be offering up the mellow classics once again this year, and, despite the release of the Land-Dweller, the Crown has done just that.
Most of the buzz will, accordingly, go to the Land-Dweller, Rolex’s entry into the highly competitive, sports-chic, integrated-bracelet watch category started by Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak back in the 1970s. Today that category is still dominated by AP’s “R.O.” as well as the Patek Philippe Nautilus and a plethora of imitators from pretty much every other brand.
Rolex’s Land-Dweller harkens back to the Oyster Quartz models that first came to market in 1977, smack in the middle of the first integrated-bracelet watch boom. The overall look of the Oyster Quartz watches of the late 1970s was effectively a Datejust with an integrated bracelet, and we can say almost the same of the Land-Dweller with its fluted bezel, cyclops date magnifier, and a familiar dial configuration, all of which make it look quintessentially like a Rolex.
The Land-Dweller is certainly the big news of the day from Rolex, as this is the first all new line of watches since the Sky-Dweller annual calendar dropped in 2012.
But there’s more to enjoy, with a few dial updates on fan-favorite models with the GMT Master II and the Oyster Perpetual. The Submariner gets no love this year, and the Daytona gets a blue dial, but generally this year is about a new model.
