Feature: Why Is This Rolex’s Most Complex Watch?

When Rolex launched the Sky-Dweller at Baselworld a decade ago this year, it was its first completely new model since the release of the Yacht-Master in 1992. Any new Rolex watch, whether an upgraded stalwart of the collection or a completely brand-new addition, comes with lofty expectations. But after twenty years of tinkering with its existing models—a new movement here, a relaunched Milgauss there—it was time to bring something new to the table.

What Rolex needed was a show-stopper, something that was both quintessentially Rolex and aesthetically fresh.

An expectant industry demanded it.

The first Sky-Dwellers were only available in precious metals, like this rose gold model

Thankfully, despite some initial apprehension, the Sky-Dweller delivered, not only giving us an uncharacteristically complex watch—for Rolex, at least—but displaying a touch of genius in the way it used its bezel to control the functions.

Anticipation Builds

As secretive as Rolex is, word still leaked out before the official 2012 release of the watch that the brand had registered the name ‘Sky-Dweller’. Understandably, rumour and speculation were rife. With a name like that, it had to be some sort of pilot’s watch. But what kind? A time-only ‘flieger’? Another chronograph to partner the popular Daytona?

With its GMT watches—originally made for Pan AM pilots in the 1950s—Rolex already had some aviation pedigree of sorts. Would this mysterious Sky-Dweller amount to a variation on the GMT II collection?

As it turned out, the Sky-Dweller did indeed feature a GMT function, but instead of a 24-hour scale on the bezel, it had a revolving display on a disc positioned off-centre in the lower half of the dial, with a small inverted triangle beneath 12 o’clock pointing to the second—or home—time zone.

Setting it was done by the bezel and the crown, more of which below.

An Annual Calendar, Too!

The Sky-Dweller is also the first Rolex with an annual calendar. Previously it has made triple calendars—displaying the day, date and month—but these are relatively easy to produce and involve manually correcting the date for the four months with 30 days.

An annual calendar means you only need to manually wind the date forward at the end of February. The four months with thirty days are all pre-programmed into the movement.

What was especially clever, however, is how the Sky Dweller displayed the month.

In the Sky-Dweller, Rolex found an ingenious way of displaying the month

Realising that there are both 12 months in a year and 12 hours in a day, it uses tiny square windows at the end of the baton hour markers to reveal the month in red. The six-hour marker represents June, for example, seven represents July, and so on.

Meanwhile the date is displayed in the cyclops window at 3 o’clock.

Command And Control

So, two impressive and highly technical complications, yet a case that features just a regular crown with no pushers or additional buttons. How does the Sky-Dweller do it?

This is where the Sky-Dweller really impresses and justifies its fat price tag, with gold versions on a bracelet at the very top-end of the Rolex price league table.

The so-called ‘Ring Command Bezel’—something we’ve seen used to similar effect on the Yacht-Master II—has three positions (or four if you include ‘neutral’) which can be set by turning it either clock-wise or anti-clockwise. Once in place, these enable the wearer, using the crown, to set one of three different functions: the date, local time, or reference time.

The functions are operated by both the crown and the 'Ring Command Bezel'

This deceptively simple movement, Caliber 9001, was created solely for this watch and resulted in Rolex registering no less than eleven patents.

Its simplicity also helped the Sky-Dweller achieve a look that lies somewhere between utilitarian and an every-day dress watch, combining the iconic fluted bezel and precious metals of the Day-Date with a contemporary looking dial. The more elegant versions come with roman numerals, but there are also Arabic numerals and baton indices.

Introduced first in precious metals, the Sky Dweller later came in steel with a gold bezel and two-tone.

The New Rolex Daytona?

Make no mistake, the Sky-Dweller is a very different watch to the Daytona, but in terms of desirability and its potential for seeing its market value rocket, it could well replicate its Rolex stablemate in the near future.

After a slightly slow start, the Sky-Dweller is now hugely in-demand

Arguably the Sky-Dweller—which has frequently and sometimes disparagingly been referred to as a ‘businessman’s watch’—lacks the Daytona’s blinding aura of cool.

But if some iconic Paul Newmanesque figure could just adopt it as their style signature and give it some love, well, who knows? The sky, forgive the pun, is the limit.

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