Simply Abu Dhabi Magazine XXIII

1 1 5 S I M P LY A B U DH A B I T his is a watch of astounding legacy. It’s difficult to overstate the impact and iconic place in history that the Rolex Oyster Perpetual Day-Date holds. This is the timepiece worn by numerable presidents and dignitaries, world leaders and cultural movers and shakers. It’s the Day-Date, available only in precious metals; it’s the pinnacle of watchmaking prestige. When it first arrived fresh from the Rolex manufacture 60 years ago, the Day-Date grabbed attention not only with its sober and simple appeal, but also for being the world’s first calendar wristwatch to indicate the day of the week spelled out in full in a window on the dial in addition to the date – an eyebrow-raising technical feat back then. So this iconic watch is a distinguished gentleman now, and in the passage of time from 1956 to 2016 some things have changed. There is still the instantaneous calendar displaying the date and the day spelled out in full of course, but with the advancement of technology we now have a paramagnetic blue Parachromhairspring. Insensitive to magnetic fields, the Parachrom material offers great stability in the face of temperature variations and is up to ten times more precise than a traditional hairspring when it comes to shocks. It is also equipped with a Rolex overcoil, ensuring its regularity in any position. Firmly held in place by a height-adjustable traversing bridge, the oscillator has a large balance wheel with variable inertia regulated extremely precisely via gold Microstella nuts. The President’s Watch is a Rolex-certified Superlative Chronometer – a self-winding mechanical movement that is COSC certified and housed in an Oyster case. It is available exclusively in 950 platinum or 18-carat gold, and the latest iteration is obviously waterproof, to a depth of 100 metres. The Day-Date has always represented the summit of the Rolex art of watchmaking. The exceptional precision, reliability, legibility and presence of this prestigious model means that it is the ultimate status watch. According to its size, the Oyster Perpetual Day-Date is equipped with calibre 3155 (36mm version), or 3255 (40mm version), two self-winding mechanical movements entirely developed and manufactured by Rolex. Their architecture, manufacturing and innovative features make them unquestionably precise and enduringly appealing… a stone cold classic that will always be one of the most impressive timepieces on the horological landscape. And with a choice of 26 different languages (including Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Latin, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian), the universal appeal will continue for another six decades and beyond.