The fake watch industry is always changing, always evolving, always reacting to the world. But some things seem to keep going. One brand, founded in 1905, has gone through ups and downs and seems unaffected by the weakness. Innovative history and textbooks have made the Rolex watch one of the most well-known products in the world, with a recognizable brand name.
To build a reputation like Rolex’s, you have to do things differently. You also have to be ahead of the curve. Rolex has done this with aplomb in the past, carefully controlling the supply of steel watches and pushing the brand in a slightly different direction by launching some eye-catching products at this year’s Baselworld. The fake Rolex is continuing to chart its own destiny.
It didn’t start with the renaissance of Tudor, but that event in 2007 now looks in retrospect to be the beginning of a transformation that elevated Rolex from a brand to some kind of looming deity. Simply put, Tudor is the new Rolex, and Rolex is a new item.
For instance, I once asked a retailer if I could commandeer thirty centimeters of unused counter space in his store. His face screwed up immediately as if suddenly overtaken by a crippling bout of indigestion.
But crazier than the current retail prices is the current availability. In 2007, you could go to a store and buy a green dial, green bezel Rolex Submariner “Hulk” out of the cabinet. You could get the watch if you had enough money. Waiting lists enforced scarcity, and secondary market prices double the ticket just didn’t exist like they do today. Now, getting a retailer that has a professional model in stock is more difficult than finding a hen with teeth.
However, Tudor has remained very fairly priced. With all the benefits of Rolex’s know-how and freedom to reinvent the brand, Tudor has carved its own niche with its own audience. It is actually the Rolex of its generation.
But since the Rolex replica watch has become an industry superpower and shed the usual focus of watch companies, it needs a new champion, a poster boy for a new era, a darling of Rolex’s past and future…
This brand is a trump card. It may not have the best tail, the most incredibly complex, or the same price tag as a mansion or private jet, but Rolex has a tradition, a personality, and a reputation that can’t be usurped. As the fake yacht master 42 has carved out a hard-to-reach niche, the brand, where anyone else would sit next to it, continues to stride in this new direction, further and further away from the group.
