With the biggest releases of the year all dropping at once last week, it’s taken some time to digest exactly what we saw from Rolex’s 2026 collection. Now that the dust of Watches & Wonders has settled, here are our thoughts on all of the Crown’s new watches for the year ahead.
A New Jubilee Dial
Following the divisive Celebration dial from last year, Rolex have instead opted for a more graphical print rooted in their own archives. This is one that got a fair bit of hate online but I was reserving judgement until seeing it in the metal – and I’m glad I did. I love it. The new 10-colour print really pops and picks out the Rolex name in bright lacquer, the kind of monogram-like pattern you’d expect from a brand like Louis Vuitton. The best news however is that despite the difference in dial production – it’s pad-printed over 10 stages – it’s exactly the same price as the standard Oyster Perpetual and comes in almost as many sizes.
Anniversary Oyster Perpetual
A bi-colour watch with a difference (for Rolex), this Oyster Perpetual celebrates 100 years of the Oyster Case. If that doesn’t sound like too exciting a milestone, at least Rolex are doing so in a more subtle way than usual. The bezel is gold but the central bracelet links that would normally match are instead in steel. Pair that with a few green touches across the dial and ‘100 Years’ replacing the ‘Swiss Made’ lettering at 6 o’clock and you have a handsome collector-centric limited edition. I’m a sucker for bi-colour so I do miss the extra gold on the bracelet, but the gold-framed dial is still great, as is an anniversary edition that whispers rather than shouts about what it is.
Redesigned Rolex Yacht-Master II
A revamp of Rolex’s worst-selling model, the new version has enough changed to potentially warrant a third generation. The regatta countdown scale has been moved to the flange, freeing up the dial for large diver-esque indexes. The function itself has also been altered so that now it moves anti-clockwise for a more intuitive countdown function. It’s also still a massive 44mm across but without the water resistance that really justifies the heft. Finished with a blue Cerachrom bezel, this feels like a halfway house between the previous Yacht-Master II and the Submariner. We’ll see whether it appeals to fans of either. It’s heading in the right direction from the previous watch, but it’s not there yet.
Oyster Perpetual Goes Gold
For the first time Rolex is blurring the line between the entry-level Oyster Perpetual collection and their dressier DateJust with a pair of diminutive OP models in Everose gold. The 28mm version comes with a green dial; the 34mm version in blue and both come with matching stone markers at 3, 6 and 9 o’clock. In and of themselves they’re lovely dress watch pieces, but when there are already too many DateJust models around, this isn’t exactly going to thin the herd. After all, I’d take the blue version over any DateJust in the current lineup and I’d even give the smallest size a go as a dress watch – even if I can’t really pull it off.
Datejust gets a Gradient Dial
Rolex are the only watchmaker that can really make a new dial newsworthy and their new green ombre gradient dial is just such a case. Housed in a white gold and steel Rolesor case and bracelet combination, it’s classic Datejust fare. The way the new green dial smokes towards the edges however does dramatically change the look of the watch, helping those white Chromalight indexes really pop. Green makes sense as a starting point; Rolex love the colour, especially on what is technically an anniversary year. But I’d be more excited to see this kind of dial filter into the vibrant colours of the Oyster Perpetual.
Day-Date in new Jubilee Gold
We weren’t expecting a new proprietary alloy this year but here we go, finally a Rolex-specific yellow gold with warmer hints than classic 18kt. It’s a beautiful hue and one that will undoubtedly make its way into the less ’exceptional’ (read off catalogue) pieces. Here that new 40mm alloy case has been matched to a pale green aventurine stone dial with diamond hour markers for a dressier take on Rolex’s annual stone-dialled watch – and, much as I loved last year’s Tiger Iron GMT-Master II, this is the best for a while.
Off-Catalogue Daytona Might be the Best Ever
This is a watch designed to stoke the endorphin glands of serious collector. The Rolesium case uses mostly steel across the board but with a platinum bezel and caseback ring. That ring surrounds a Daytona rarity, an exhibition caseback and the dial is made from crisp white enamel for an albino-adjacent look. It’s like Rolex have taken some of the rarest Daytona elements and consolidated them into one watch. Like the new Jubilee gold day-date, this is off-catalogue, and you can be sure that any being made have already found a home. Auctioneers will have a field day with this in a few years. It’s the best Daytona I’ve tried on for a long time.
