ON THE WRIST: Rolex Yachtmaster Blue Dial 116622

116622

Selfridges / London, 9th March 2019

Hard to believe it may be, but until today I'd never tried on a Rolex. Never been particularly bothered either... and these days, it's pretty much impossible to try on most of the popular models as there just isn't any available stock anywhere. But I was a man on a mission today, I wanted to try on as many watches as possible and top of the list were Rolex and Hublot. Hublot is easy, plenty of Hublot stock around, chuck a stone in London and you'll hit a decent Hublot, Rolex on the other hand...

But actually, dredging through a sea of two-tone, undersized and generally ugly looking watches, I lucked into finding what is surely the nicest looking Rolex I have ever seen. I'm not too familiar with Rolex ways of doing things, but I vaguely remembered that a blue dial meant something, and looking at the watch in the cabinet I came to the conclusion that it meant the watch was white gold.

As it turns out, that wasn't the case. The case is actually Rolesium (Rolex's own blend of stainless steel and platinum, with it's own super tacky brand name!), but the bezel is 950 platinum, which means the watch retails for £8900 instead of the £20,000+ I was kind of expecting, and no Rolex do not put prices next to the watches in their boutique cabinets. The lady who served me was very nice and she told me that the watch had only come in the day before and that it would probably not be around for very long. Of course, this could be sales banter, but knowing Rolex I think her words were genuine enough. It's certainly the Rolex I would buy.

It's almost the Rolex TAG might make, with a gorgeous blue dial and the red second hand, it really worked with the icy case and bezel and it looks so un-Rolexy. I've seen these Yachtamsters before with fairly insipid dials and not really liked them too much, so it must be the strong red/blue colour scheme that's changed my mind. The watch is 40mm in diameter and reasonably thin, without being silly, and really the only thing about the watch that I wasn't overly keen on was the bracelet, or rather the width of it. It seemed awfully narrow for a 40mm watch, I don't know for sure but I would say it must have tapered to at least 16mm, which seemed a bit too narrow for my liking. Remarkably, even the cyclops didn't bother me, probably because unlike some of the ones I own, it actually does what it's supposed to and makes the date easier to read!

The watch is water resistant to 100M, although the lady who served me assured me that Rolex test to 300M anyway. I should hope so because 100M is a bit stingy for a non-chronograph called a 'Yachtmaster' don't you think? As you'd expect from Rolex the hour markers on the dial are white gold filled with Rolex's own lume (Chromalight) which has a long lasting blue glow. I didn't get to experience the lume myself, but I understand it's pretty good.

I honestly don't buy into the Rolex hype at all, looking around the boutiques I noted that there was almost nothing there that I would buy if I had pockets full of cash. But this one really stood out to me, and I'm glad I actually managed to find something I genuinely liked to try on rather than just trying on something unattractive for the sake of it. But £8900 is a lot of money and if I had that available then there's so many other options I would explore first that I very much doubt I would end up buying this (resale values be damned - more on this anon). Still I'm glad I've finally experienced a little bit of the Rolex magic, even if overall it has left me more confused than ever as to why this brand above all others are so outrageously successful.