Surprisingly, we have a penchant for accelerating the passage of time.
Which, coming from watchmakers, is not as illogical as it sounds. We design and build machines whose sole purpose is to simulate a lifetime’s worth of wear and tear on our watches, in a mere few days.
One tirelessly shakes the bracelets. Another continuously opens and closes the clasps. One subjects the watches to a pressure of 4.5 metric tons. Another drops them from twenty different positions and heights. One immerses them in salt and chlorine. Another propels abrasive sand onto them. One heats them to one extreme while another freezes them at the other. All of these, and more, test the watch’s mettle further than anything it may ever have to endure. But we do not stop at that.
As there are alterations which no machine could ever recreate, we have devised another trial for our watches: Wear and tear in real conditions. Indeed, our prototypes can be entrusted to be worn for many years before ever reaching production. It is, by far, our longest test. One we choose to constrain ourselves to for one reason. To truly guarantee a timepiece’s performance through time requires nothing less than time. A lot of it.
Rolex Watchmaking Know-how