As the company that either invented or popularized the dive watch, the GMT watch, the first water-resistant watch, the first automatic watches, and much more besides, you could hardly downplay Rolex ’s influence on watchmaking history. But while its iconic sports watches, like the Submariner , Daytona and GMT-Master are endlessly imitated, Rolex is not seen as a trendsetter, preferring to ignore passing horological fashions. It does its own thing, iterating carefully and minimally on its age-old templates.

Five years ago, however, Rolex introduced a collection so avant-garde that is still influencing creative decisions across the entire watch industry, and it did so in one of its least-heralded models: the Oyster Perpetual . The idea was so simple that we’ve barely noticed it bec

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