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NEWS: The New Rolex Deepsea with D-Blue dial announced

NEWS: The New Rolex Deepsea with D-Blue dial announced

Felix Scholz

FROM RUMOUR TO REALITY….

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The latest Rolex in all its aquatic glory.

Well, the wait is over. This morning (Australian time), Rolex announced a brand new Deepsea Sea-Dweller, breaking their regular release schedule to commemorate James Cameron’s 2012 Mariana Trench dive (also timed to coincide with the release of the Deepsea Challenge 3D film).
But before we look at the real deal, let’s take a quick look at the pretenders.

Most honourable mockup: Monochrome’s Blue on Blue Deepsea

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The Monochrome mockup.

The guys at Monochrome give good mock-up, and this conservative rendition seemed to be legit on paper. Blue dial and blue bezel is an obvious choice for a new model, but they too were thrown by Rolex’s curveball.

Worst in show. This guy

Rolex-Mockup
Hint: It’s porous, not poruos.

Rolex release + Watch forum + photoshop = trolling paradise. Look, the best that can be said for this blue and white gold mock up is that the photoshop is pretty good. But the poor spelling and grammar (not to mention the distinctly un-Rolex tone) give the game away on this tongue-in-cheek mock-up.

The Real Deal.

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The green ‘DEEPSEA’ text echoes the green colour of the Deepsea Challenger submersible

The fact is, it would have taken some pretty impressive inside-running to guess the actual release. To our credit, we were approximately right in our prediction, some days ago. But only in the broadest terms. The nuances of this watch are very unpredictable, and as the mid-century designer Ray Eames constantly reminded us, ‘The detail is the design’. Let’s get into them…

Rolex have released the new Rolex Deepsea Sea-Dweller with ‘D-Blue’ dial in New York, to celebrate James Cameron’s historic solo dive of the deepest point in the ocean, the Mariana Trench.

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That dial! All final judgments reserved though until we see it in the metal and at play with natural light.

To capture the spirit of this exploration to the depths Rolex have created a brand new two-colour gradient dial. The D-blue dial echoes the colour gradation of the trench, moving from blue to deepest black. The achievement of this gradual two tone effect is very impressive, and we suspect it is nothing short of stunning in real life. This professional grade tool-watch is also capable of providing illumination in the darkest depths, thanks to the Chromalight luminous material on the indices and hands.

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Very early and grainy ‘in the metal’ shot via TRF

And while this watch may not be everything for all fans, it’s a fitting tribute to a great accomplishment and a clear demonstration of Rolex’s continued technical proficiency.

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Expanded view of the Rolex Deepsea D-Blue construction