ROLEX WATCHES ARE THE MOST RECOGNIZABLE LUXURY WATCHES IN THE WORLD.
THEY ARE ARE WORN BY THE RICH AND FAMOUS.
ROLEX HAS MADE SOME OF THE MOST ICONIC WRISTWATCHES IN THE PAST 7 DECADES.

Year Founded/Place: 1905, London, England.

Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.

Used by celebrities: Yes, a very high percentage of celebrities own at least one Rolex watch.

Rolex story:

Founded in 1905 in London, England, by Hans Wilsdorf and his brother-in-law Alfred Davis, originally named Wilsdorf & Davies. They started as watch assemblers and they did not manufacture components for their watches, they bought the movements from Swiss firm Hermann Aegler and the cases from Dennison and other firms. Originally their watches were sold without a brand to jewelers so the jewelers would brand the dials with their own names, but they had the brand W&D  inside the case.

Hans Wilsdorf wanted to create a brand name that would be descriptive of their watches and in 1908  he registered the trademark “ROLEX”. The word Rolex came from the idea of having to wind the watch for it to work and that word sounding like you wound the watch.

By 1915 their company name was changed to Rolex Watch Co Ltd. and by 1919, after World War I, and due to high taxes and high export duties in England on luxury items like gold and silver they moved the company and their operations to Switzerland. In 1920 they changed the company name to Montres Rolex S.A. and later to Rolex S.A.

Once moved to Switzerland Hans Wilsdorf wanted to address a common problem with watches, the entry of dust to the case and the damage of the movement by that dust. He used one of his case manufacturers to create a dustproof case which they called “Oyster” due to the fact that it was hermetically sealed to prevent dust from entering.