‘Oyster Story’ traces the history of the brand’s first waterproof wristwatch, from Mercedes Gleitze’s English Channel ‘vindication swim’ to modern horological marvels
Before modern-day brand ambassadors, there was Mercedes Gleitze. In 1927, the 26-year-old secretary and first British woman to swim across the English Channel famously wore a Rolex Oyster on her highly publicised “vindication swim”, two weeks after her record-setting first crossing had been challenged. The model’s waterproof case, clamped shut like an oyster shell, had been invented the year before – then Gleitze rocketed it to fame on the world stage.
Gleitze’s watch is one of over 100 Rolex models on display at the newly opened “Oyster Story” exhibition in Shanghai. Celebrating the centenary of the Swiss watchmaker’s first waterproof wristwatch, the immersive exhibition opened at the West Bund Dome this week and runs until June 28.
British swimmer Mercedes Gleitze (right) is one of 100 legendary Rolex watch wearers profiled in the exhibition. Photo: Handout
Advertisement
Inside the sprawling space, four activations tell the story of the Oyster. The main pavilion’s ground floor begins with an early Rolex pocket watch model, then follows founder Hans Wilsdorf’s foundational vision that the wristwatch, not the pocket watch, was horology’s future. A timeline traces the brand’s creation, the invention of the Submarine wristwatch (Wilsdorf’s first real experiment in waterproofness), the 1926 breakthrough of the patented Oyster case, and the subsequent development of the Oyster Perpetual’s self-winding mechanism in the 1930s. Vintage advertisements, historic photographs and original watch models document the watchmaker’s evolution.
Rolex Testimonees, including world-renowned soprano Sonya Yoncheva (third from right), acclaimed filmmaker Jia Zhangke (second from left) and tennis legend Li Na (third from left), at the “Oyster Story” exhibition’s opening ceremony, on June 9. Photo: Handout
The Oyster and its groundbreaking technology led to a long line of descendants, including the Submariner, the Explorer, the GMT-Master, the Cosmograph Daytona, the Milgauss and the Yacht-Master. These are on show in The Age of The Oyster display, which begins with an original 1926 octagonal Oyster and finishes with this year’s celebratory Oyster Perpetual 41 model in yellow Rolesor with a slate dial inscribed with “100 Years”.
The “Oyster Story” exhibition takes place at West Bund Dome in Shanghai until June 28. Photo: Handout
The main pavilion also presents a collection of rare models from the Oyster family throughout the years, as well as a display of the watch out in the world – on the wrists of mountaineers summiting peaks in the 1950s, deep sea explorers diving into the Mariana Trench, or Roger Federer as he won the Australian Open. Upstairs, the first floor is dedicated to iconic Rolex watch wearers, from acclaimed Chinese director Jia Zhangke and Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison, to Spanish tennis star Carlos Alcaraz.
A second pavilion titled Superlative dives into the art of modern watchmaking, with a thorough exploration of the process of designing, producing and testing an Oyster. Cases, bezels, bracelets, dials, materials and movements in all their variation are on display as well as testing devices like the Cyclostock, which simulates the ageing of a watch’s mechanism by continuously winding it.
The main pavilion’s ground floor traces the history of Rolex and the groundbreaking invention of the Oyster. Photo: Handout
