Hands-On: The Rolex Perpetual 1908 Might Just Be The Dressy Rolex We’ve Been Waiting For
Twenty-four hours ago I wouldn't have guessed the first watch I'd be writing up from Rolex would be a new dressy watch that's ushering in an entirely new collection of dressy watches from the brand. But that's exactly what makes the new Perpetual 1908 so exciting. Besides the 1908, we (the Hodinkee "we") passed around a lot of sport watches from a handful of brands today at Watches & Wonders – Rolex, Tudor, IWC, even Lange (though , it's a hell of a "sport watch"). And a lot of them are great! But here's Rolex, the ultimate maker of sport watches – professional watches, to have them tell it – dedicating its nearly infinite resources to a completely new line of dressed-up watches, and nailing it. In the same way the Rolex Submariner of 2023 feels kind of like the consistent evolution of the original Rolex Submariner of 1953, the new Perpetual 1908 line feels like the modern evolution of what a dressy collection from Rolex should look like, even if we skipped many of the years in between. Not a re-issue at all, just the modern iteration of a watch that's always been.
