Rolex has unveiled an entirely new watch, and it is not another variation on the Submariner, GMT-Master or Daytona.
Announced in Milan, the Perpetual Padellone is a 39mm annual-calendar moonphase inspired by one of the more unusual watches in the company’s history. It becomes only the second model in Rolex’s dressier Perpetual collection, following the 1908, introduced in 2023.
There had been clues that something was coming. Last October, watch writer and eagle-eyed watch spotter Nick Gould (@niccoloy) spotted a Rolex patent filing for an instantaneous calendar mechanism, prompting speculation that the company might be preparing a new calendar watch.
The answer looks backwards as much as forwards. Padellone means “large frying pan” in Italian, the nickname collectors gave reference 8171, a 38mm triple-calendar moonphase Rolex made briefly from the late 1940s into the early 1950s. Rolex has now adopted the collectors’ nickname as the official name of its descendant.
The new Padellone displays the day, date and month alongside a blue enamel moonphase, where two meteorite moons carry the same slightly strange little faces found on the original. Inside is the new calibre 7190, whose Haplos system recognises 30- and 31-day months, meaning the calendar needs correcting only once a year, at the end of February. Day, date and month change simultaneously at midnight, and Rolex says the movement is protected by 30 patent applications.
After last year’s Land-Dweller, this marks the second brand-new Rolex model in as many years—a positively breakneck pace for the famously glacial Swiss watchmaker.
