Rolex announces a hefty lineup of new watches for 2023
Three years on, it’s still hilarious to think fully-grown men and women in this world were losing their minds when a bunch of candy-coloured Rolex Oyster Perpetual pieces were released. Rolex’s reprise of the collector-cult Stella dials from the ’70s was a raging success, with the likes of genuine watch nerd King Kendrick avidly courting them. The baby-blue versions – they were pre the Patek x Tiffany Nautilus FYI – becoming Submariner-scarce at the dealers was as much of a shock to Rolex as anyone else we imagine.
2023 sees the Oyster Perpetual return in a thoroughly unexpected form as well as a couple of other welcomed surprises from The Crown. Here are our favourite Rolex releases of 2023.
The new OP steals the show
Anyone who’s ever suggested Rolex is not a brand that needs to surprise or excite outside its age-old art of subtlety isn’t wrong. But, that doesn’t mean Rolex doesn’t know who to dial up the fun as and when it chooses. On March 27, 2023, it chose exactly that.
It may have just discontinued its quirky-flash Milgauss, but with the new Rolex Oyster Perpetual we are tickled by pink, blue, green, warm yellow, and coral red – all on the same dial. It’s the watch that no one saw coming – Rolex isn’t known for being playful – which is why the hype is louder than usual. The tables have been turned upside down with baby blue Oyster Perpetuals in 41mm, 36mm, and 34mm that feature a bubble-fest of a dial encapsulating the entire rainbow of the nouveau Stella O.P.s. No one is counting but there are 51 utterly charming celebratory bubbles of fun overlapping on the dial and we are very happy about it.
One person we imagine will be dead keen on this new release is Kendrick Lamar. While many of his contemporaries wore bussed-out Pateks at the Grammys earlier in the year, he rocked his baby blue 41mm version. It says a lot for Rolex as a brand when its basic models are this good, but the bubble-fest today takes it to another level of art-as-dial or vice versa.
