The Conversation: We Respond To Your Comments On The New Rolex, Breitling, And Omegas – Plus Malaika’s Do’s And Don’ts
The response: To many, the most exciting thing about the release of the new Rolex Deepsea Challenge wasn’t the watch itself, but prognosticating about what it might mean for the future of Rolex – mostly – more titanium watches? Maybe, who knows. Every time Rolex throws us a new release, it feels like Opening Day in baseball: anything’s possible again. A lot of people picked up on a couple of other details on the new Deepsea Challenge too, so let’s zoom in on those. First, yes, chamfers are back! The lugs on the Deepsea Challenge have noticeable polished bevels, something we’ve really only seen from Tudor in recent times. An especially nice touch for their first production titanium watch. For vintage nerds, this is huge; sure, it’s kind of funny Rolex would finally bring back vintage-inspired chamfers in the decidedly-not-vintage Deepsea Challenge. But if this is any sign of things to come in its other sports watches, it’d be a welcome return for a lot of enthusiasts who spend too much time thinking about lugs (myself included).
Okay, onto the other detail: The matte dial. Whether this is the first matte dial we’ve seen from modern Rolex is kind of an unanswerable question, or at least it depends on your definition of “matte.” To take just one example, look at the current Sea-Dweller ref. 126600 (there are others, too). It has what many describe as a semi-matte dial, less glossy than many of Rolex’s other dials. Meanwhile, Rolex officially describes the dial of the Deepsea Challenge as “intense black, matte with satin finish.” Whatever words you use, it certainly looks more like the traditional matte dials you might’ve expected from Rolex in the 70s or 80s – perhaps this is partially thanks to the “satin finish” as well, which seems to give the dial a certain depth and texture that’s decidedly not glossy.
Come to think of it, Rolex insists that this is basically the ultimate dive watch, capable of going to the literal bottom of the ocean. So maybe it does make sense it’d bring back a couple of its most revered tool-watch features from years bygone for this new tool watch? Either way, it’s kind of like Rolex adding that single line of red text when it introduced the new Sea-Dweller back in 2017 – a subtle wink to enthusiasts to say, “yep, we’re listening.” – Tony Traina