Last year at Watches and Wonders in Geneva, Rolex released two watches that no one was expecting. Beaming with a rainbow of color, the Rolex Day-Date 36 Jigsaw Puzzle and the Rolex Oyster Perpetual Celebration Dial were a fun and playful version of Rolex that we rarely see, especially in the brand’s stainless steel watches. The reason we rarely see that side of Rolex is because Rolex makes boring watches. Rolex makes beautiful, reliable, high-quality watches, but when you strip away the branding, baggage, and context, the watches aren’t very exciting.

Think about it. Rolex was one of the last major producers of sports/tool watches to use titanium. Did it make an entirely new watch to showcase its foray into using the material? Of course not — it made another Sea-Dweller! When the brand “updates” a model, like it did with the Daytona this year, the changes are often so incremental as to go unnoticed without a side-by-side comparison. It’s like a carmaker’s mid-cycle enhancements, except there is no cycle, it’s just one long string of subtle changes. Going further, the most complicated watches the brand makes are an annual calendar and a yacht timer (the latter of which is perfectly symbolic of the brand’s status signaling). Meanwhile, Grand Seiko has beautiful dials and incredible finishing; TAG Heur made a fascinating Porsche chronograph (and put diamonds in an aluminum watch); and have you seen the Omega Constellation or Dark Side of The Moon or DeVille Tourbillon? But Rolex is still in preschool playing with bubbles and puzzles.

Certainly, Rolex has some fun. Along with those colorful dials at WW2023, the Crown also released a set of stone dial Day-Dates. We’ve all seen the “Eye of the Tiger” Daytona, and everyone knows that Rolex’s gem setting is amongst the best in the industry. But these outré models only serve to define the brand by showing what it isn’t: They are remarkable because they are so un-Rolex. Consider our recent article on watch customization. Entire companies are catering to Rolex after-market modification, as the brand’s watches are amongst the most popular for customization. There is no such cottage industry dedicated to Hublot or Grand Seiko, at least partly because those watches don’t need to be made interesting or exciting — they already are.

The reality is, though, that Rolex has to make boring watches. Notwithstanding its marketing and distribution practices, Rolex couldn’t make and sell over a million watches each year if it were creating divisive, niche designs or haute horlogerie timepieces that combine minute repeaters with a perpetual calendar and a hot dog timer. The brand’s success has been built on boring. We go back to Rolex and revere it not for the chances it takes, but for the fact that it barely takes any at all. Rolex is safe, reliable, and steadfast in the face of a watch industry that is constantly pivoting to catch the latest trend. While the watches may be boring, in a world of watches that presents myriad opportunities for genuine excitement, maybe there’s room for boring.