WT_2004_05: ROLEX: THE STATUS SYMBOL
WT_2004_05: ROLEX: THE STATUS SYMBOL WT_2004_05: ROLEX: THE STATUS SYMBOL
SYMBOL The history of Rolex, like that of so many important global brands, began with an impressive entrepreneurial personality. Hans Wilsdorf left his native Germany at age 19 and went to Switzerland, where he got his first taste of the watch business. He moved on to London a few years later, where he found a business partner and started his own business. The company of Wilsdorf & Davis Ltd. conducted business at 83 Hatton Gardens, where Wilsdorf laid the foundation for what would ultimately become a global watch empire. Wilsdorf was a skilful businessman with ambition and foresight. Soon after the turn of the 20th century, when most men wore pocket-watches and many people ridiculed the first timepieces for the wrist, he sensed that the future would in fact belong to the wristwatch. His business idea was a good one, but a critical ingredient was lacking. Wilsdorf hadn’t yet found a precise movement that could be encased inside a fashionable and adequately water-resistant case. This was the situation facing him when he moved his business to 44 Holborn Viaduct. The market square in Kulmbach, Germany. Wilsdorf’s grandfather’s shop can be seen in the center of the photo. Wilsdorf’s contacts with the Swiss watchmaking industry stood him in good stead now. He traveled to Biel and visited Aegler SA, a watch business that had developed an 11-ligne movement with a lever escapement and had already successfully encased that caliber inside its own wristwatches. Wilsdorf offered to distribute Aegler’s wristwatches in Great Britain, and the Swiss firm was amenable to the idea. By the end of his visit, the partners agreed on a first deal worth several hundred thousand Swiss francs. This was a daring step for Wilsdorf because the value of the deal was five times larger than the total operating capital of Wilsdorf & Davis Ltd. Fortunately, the reward for his courage was soon forthcoming. In 1913, Wilsdorf & Davis was granted exclusive rights to distribute Aegler wristwatches in Great Britain and throughout the British Empire. This trailblazing success didn’t materialize out of thin air. To simplify business dealings be- tween London and Switzerland, Wilsdorf had established an office in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1907. In 1912, when the collaboration with Aegler was already proceeding smoothly, Wilsdorf moved the office to Biel, where a managing agent ran things. Wilsdorf was too ambitious to accept the fact that the big English specialty shops like The Goldsmiths Company or Asprey insisted that their own name appear on the dials (and HANS WILSDORF WAS TOO AMBITIOUS TO LANGUISH IN ANONYMITY. HE WANTED TO MAKE A WATCH WITH HIS OWN BRAND NAME ON THE DIAL. sometimes even on the movements), forcing suppliers to languish in anonymity. With characteristic tenacity, he set out to put an end to this glory-hogging tradition. To accomplish his goal, however, he needed a brand name of his own and highly recognizable products. The beginning came in 1908 with the coining of the word “Rolex.” According to an unconfirmed legend, the neologism was born as an abbreviation of the French phrase “horlogerie exquise,” which means “exquisite ho- A view of Geneva and Quai Wilson, where Hans Wilsdorf lived during the 1950s. October 2004 WatchTime 53
ROLEX rology.” Wilsdorf opted for the word “Rolex” because it could readily be pronounced in many different languages. Also, the two short, simple syllables required so little space on a watch’s dial that there was still plenty of room left to eternalize a jeweler’s name along with it. Wilsdorf’s next strategy was to make the Rolex name synonymous with quality and exclusivity. He asked his customers for permission to print “Rolex” on only a few of the watches that he supplied. After these pioneers had sold well, he gradually began increasing the number of “Rolex” watches in each package of six timepieces. Starting in 1925, he launched a series of uncommonly creative advertising campaigns in England. A further contribution to this successful strategy was made by the British Commonwealth and its world-traveling citizens, whose precise Rolex watches attracted admiring attention wherever they went. Nev- Rolex’s founder: Hans Wilsdorf The man who would go down in history as the founder of the world’s best-known brand of luxury watches was born in Kulmbach, Germany on March 22, 1881. Anna and Ferdinand Wilsdorf named their second child Hans Wilhelm. The talented boy enjoyed a sheltered childhood for the first twelve years of his life. But then his parents died unexpectedly, leaving uncles on his mother’s side of the family to care for the three orphaned Wilsdorf children. Hans was sent to a boarding school in Coburg, from which he graduated at the unusually young age of 17. He then went to business school in Bayreuth before turning his back on Germany at the turn of the 20th century. Wilsdorf’s late mother was a descendant of the wellknown Maisel brewing dynasty, so she had hoped her son would join the family business, but Hans had other plans. After a brief training with a pearl dealer in Geneva, he found a job that suited him at Cuna Korten in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1900. This firm, which had its headquarters on posh Boulevard Léopold Robert, exported watches of all varieties. For a monthly salary of 80 francs, the multilingual newcomer took care of English correspondence and general office tasks. Among his daily chores was winding and monitoring the rates of several hundred watches. Korten, which generated an annual turnover in excess of one million francs, sparked Wilsdorf’s lifelong fascination with ticking timepieces. Korten purchased the greater portion of its merchandise from producers in Germany, France, and Switzerland. The ambitious young office assistant soon knew that his true calling was to go into business on his own. Wilsdorf 54 WatchTime October 2004 ertheless, 19 years would pass before Wilsdorf was able to deliver nothing but watches bearing his own insignia on their dials, movements, and cases. The final breakthrough came with the launch of the world’s first truly water-resistant wristwatch. Whether they liked it or not, dealers who wanted to sell this futuristic product now had no other choice but to accept the presence of the name “Rolex.” Wilsdorf had not only developed a genuinely practical wristwatch for daily use; he had also given the product a distinctive brand identity. More or less simultaneously with the start of the First World War, Wilsdorf and his partner in Biel agreed to change the name of the company. The firm that had formerly been known as “Les Fils de Jean Aelger – Fabrique Rebberg” was renamed “Rolex Watch Co., Aegler S.A., Manufacture d’Horlogerie, Usine du Rebberg.” Approximately 200 employees were commissioned three excellent watchmakers to each craft a golden chronometer-qualitypocketwatch. Neuchâtel Observatory duly awarded an official rate certificate to each watch. It didn’t take Wilsdorf long to sell all three pocket-watches for a tidy profit. Impressed, Wilsdorf’s bosses entrusted new tasks and greater responsibilities to their brilliant young employee, but the narrow horizons of the company were too confining for Wilsdorf. After a compulsory army stint in Germany, he again packed his bags and went to London. He arrived there in 1903 and founded his own business two years later. His beginning was hardly auspicious: Thieves had stolen his inheritance, which totaled 33,000 German gold marks, during a ship voyage, so he was obliged to borrow starting capital from his siblings and from a much older business partner named Alfred James Davis. Wilsdorf soon settled in and acquired British citizenship, a decision spurred on by a legal battle with the city of Geneva about the confiscation of a plot of land on the shore of Lac Léman. After the death of his first wife, May Florence, Wilsdorf married a native of Appenzell in 1950. During the winter months, the couple resided in their large, comfortable home at no. 39, Quai Wilson. The best ideas typically occurred to Wilsdorf during his morning ablutions, so the extremely well endowed gourmand and wine connoisseur usually spent up to two hours in the bath each morning. The cover of a brochure from the World War One era. occupied with the manufacture of Rolex watches. The enterprise conducted its business on the other side of the English Channel under the name “Wilsdorf & Davis, Rolex Watch Company.” This name was changed to This was where he conceived the famous magnifying (Cyclops) lens above the Oyster’s date display, which was originally intended to help his nearsighted wife read the date on her wristwatch. After breakfast, his trusty chauffeur Rüttimann would drive him to work in his Mercedes. Rolex’s boss had first put his trust in the German car brand around 1935. Rolls Royce repeatedly tried to convince Wilsdorf of the merits of their noble British brand, but had no luck in changing his mind. Wilsdorf’s employees appreciated the human side of their boss. At Christmas and before the beginning of the watchmakers’ annual vacation season, it was his habit to stroll through each department and shake each employee’s hand and personally thank them for their hard work. On Saturday mornings, Wilsdorf would occasionally invite a few friends to share a glass of port with him and listen to anecdotes about his far-flung journeys. In his later years, the firm’s founder was burdened by a limp but otherwise healthy. At his 75th birthday celebration in 1956, one of the highlights of the evening was the presentation to Wilsdorf of a genuine world premiere: the Stick- O-Matic, a walking stick with a built-in self-winding watch. Twenty-one years after his death, Wilsdorf’s adopted hometown of Geneva honored him by naming a street after him. His native town of Kulmbach, Germany keeps his memory alive at Hans Wilsdorf Vocational School. His name, however, cannot rival that of “Rolex”, the brand that he invented and piloted to global renown.
- Page 1: ROLEX THE STATUS All of Rolex’s v
- Page 5 and 6: ROLEX year that Rolex celebrated it
- Page 7 and 8: ROLEX Healthy evolution: the first
<strong>SYMBOL</strong><br />
The history of Rolex, like that of so<br />
many important global brands, began<br />
with an impressive entrepreneurial<br />
personality. Hans Wilsdorf left his native Germany<br />
at age 19 and went to Switzerland,<br />
where he got his first taste of the watch business.<br />
He moved on to London a few years later,<br />
where he found a business partner and<br />
started his own business. The company of<br />
Wilsdorf & Davis Ltd. conducted business at<br />
83 Hatton Gardens, where Wilsdorf laid the<br />
foundation for what would ultimately become<br />
a global watch empire.<br />
Wilsdorf was a skilful businessman with<br />
ambition and foresight. Soon after the turn of<br />
the 20th century, when most men wore pocket-watches<br />
and many people ridiculed the first<br />
timepieces for the wrist, he sensed that the future<br />
would in fact belong to the wristwatch.<br />
His business idea was a good one, but a critical<br />
ingredient was lacking. Wilsdorf hadn’t yet<br />
found a precise movement that could be encased<br />
inside a fashionable and adequately water-resistant<br />
case.<br />
This was the situation facing him when he<br />
moved his business to 44 Holborn Viaduct.<br />
The market square in Kulmbach, Germany. Wilsdorf’s<br />
grandfather’s shop can be seen in the center of the photo.<br />
Wilsdorf’s contacts with the Swiss watchmaking<br />
industry stood him in good stead now. He<br />
traveled to Biel and visited Aegler SA, a watch<br />
business that had developed an 11-ligne movement<br />
with a lever escapement and had already<br />
successfully encased that caliber inside its own<br />
wristwatches. Wilsdorf offered to distribute Aegler’s<br />
wristwatches in Great Britain, and the<br />
Swiss firm was amenable to the idea. By the end<br />
of his visit, the partners agreed on a first deal<br />
worth several hundred thousand Swiss francs.<br />
This was a daring step for Wilsdorf because the<br />
value of the deal was five times larger than the<br />
total operating capital of Wilsdorf & Davis Ltd.<br />
Fortunately, the reward for his courage was<br />
soon forthcoming. In 1913, Wilsdorf & Davis<br />
was granted exclusive rights to distribute Aegler<br />
wristwatches in Great Britain and throughout<br />
the British Empire.<br />
This trailblazing success didn’t materialize<br />
out of thin air. To simplify business dealings be-<br />
tween London and Switzerland, Wilsdorf had<br />
established an office in La Chaux-de-Fonds in<br />
1907. In 1912, when the collaboration with<br />
Aegler was already proceeding smoothly, Wilsdorf<br />
moved the office to Biel, where a managing<br />
agent ran things.<br />
Wilsdorf was too ambitious to accept the<br />
fact that the big English specialty shops like<br />
The Goldsmiths Company or Asprey insisted<br />
that their own name appear on the dials (and<br />
HANS WILSDORF WAS TOO AMBITIOUS TO LANGUISH<br />
IN ANONYMITY. HE WANTED TO MAKE A<br />
WATCH WITH HIS OWN BRAND NAME ON <strong>THE</strong> DIAL.<br />
sometimes even on the movements), forcing<br />
suppliers to languish in anonymity. With characteristic<br />
tenacity, he set out to put an end to<br />
this glory-hogging tradition. To accomplish his<br />
goal, however, he needed a brand name of his<br />
own and highly recognizable products.<br />
The beginning came in 1908 with the coining<br />
of the word “Rolex.” According to an unconfirmed<br />
legend, the neologism was born as<br />
an abbreviation of the French phrase “horlogerie<br />
exquise,” which means “exquisite ho-<br />
A view of Geneva and Quai Wilson, where<br />
Hans Wilsdorf lived during the 1950s.<br />
October <strong>2004</strong> WatchTime 53
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