Rolex single-handedly invented the notion of celebrity endorsement way back in 1927. Seeing an opportunity to generate some valuable free publicity, the Swiss watchmaker gave London secretary-turned-cross channel-swimmer Mercedes Gleitze a brand new Rolex Oyster to wear during a record-breaking Dover to Calais attempt. Oddly, Miss Gleitz decided to put the watch, which featured a new, but as-yet properly un-tested, double locking crown with an air and water-tight seal – around her neck, rather than on her wrist. And she didn’t actually finish the swim because of exhaustion and extreme cold.
Did those minor details concern Rolex’s nascent marketing whizzes? Not a bit. The Oyster stayed dry, kept perfect time throughout the 23-mile swim and Rolex established itself as the first watch maker ever to sponsor an adventure personality. Three decades later, Rolex moved up. From sea level to mountain high.
In 1953, on an expedition led by Sir John Hunt, Edmund Hillary became the first man to summit Mount Everest. Accompanying Hillary was his faithful climbing partner Sherpa Tenzing Norgay – and a Rolex Oyster Perpetual that would serve as the model ancestor of the classic Rolex Explorer.
Rolex Oyster Perpetual 1953
Only problem was, Sir Edmund Hillary, Rolex’s first mountaineer, had a similarly eccentric, off-piste attitude to his sponsorship duties as his aquatic, ambassadorial stablemate. When Hillary climbed Everest he was (loosely) contractually obliged to wear his borrowed Rolex to the summit but for some odd reason (delirium brought on by the extreme altitude perhaps?) once at the top of the mountain, he swapped his Swiss watch for another timepiece given to him by boutique British jeweller Smiths, a move which was followed up by a letter of approval to Smith’s on his return. “I carried your watch to the summit and it worked perfectly.”
Mercedes Gleitze was given a Rolex Oyster to wear as she attempted to swim from Dover to Calais – but she failed to complete her mission.
Undeterred by this humiliation, Rolex persisted in its relationship with Hillary and, post-Everest, the now knighted Alpiniste became a life-long ambassador, appearing in advertisements for the marque for many years after the historical climb. But there’s another twist in this vertiginous story – Hilary and Tenzing weren’t the first Rolex-sponsored climbers to attempt Everest. The year before the triumphant 1953 summit that neatly coincided with the Queen’s coronation, the Nepalese government gave permission for a Swiss team to try its luck. Led by climber Raymond Lambert and officially sponsored by Rolex, every member of the now uncelebrated and largely forgotten expedition was kitted out with Oyster Perpetual watches.
The first Oyster Cushion Shaped Rolex (1926).
But the push to the top, led by Lambert and accompanied by Sherpa Norgay, was dogged by bad weather and at the 8,595 metre mark, the couple turned back. Legend has it that Lambert gifted Tenzing his “bubbleback” Rolex as a mark of friendship and gratitude before he flew off home to Geneva. Tenzing wore the same watch when he went back up Everest the following year with Hillary.
Five decades on and many, many metres up, Rolex continued its association with high adventure, most recently with its sponsorship of a man who is widely regarded as greatest mountaineer of his generation. During a long and precipitous career, US-born Ed Viesturs scaled all 14 of the world’s 8,000-metre peaks without supplemental oxygen– starting in 1989 with Mount Kangchenjunga in the Nepalese Himalayas and finishing in 2005 with Annapurna. Viesturs has also made seven successful ascents of Mount Everest.
Sir Edmund Hillary’s 1950 Rolex Oyster Perpetual is now on show at the Beyer Watch and Clock Museum in Zürich.
The Rolex Oyster has been on quite a few expeditions since its first introduction in
