Tudor is an interesting brand with a rich history. Hans Wilsdorf, the founder of Rolex, was a brilliant strategist with a very good and clear vision for the future, and this is confirmed by the following words of his: “For several years I have been considering the idea of creating a watch that our agents would be able to sell at a more modest price than Rolex, but at the same time this watch would have to meet the same standards of quality and reliability for which Rolex are famous. I decided to establish a separate company for the purpose of producing and marketing this new watch. It is called the Tudor Watch Company.” Having created Rolex in the first decade of the 20th century and already, by that time, a leading figure in the world of luxury Swiss watches, he made this announcement on 6 March 1946. It marked the birth of the Tudor brand and of its production and communication strategy.
Hans Wilsdorf’s intuition was as simple as it was brilliant. At that time, the development of the watchmaking industry was in full swing, and today’s widespread mergers and acquisitions in the sector were still a distant future. The public was ready to recognise and appreciate a product whose technical, aesthetic and functional qualities were not offered by a newcomer to the market, but by the Rolex brand, which had already earned worldwide fame for the high quality of its watches.
Initially, the rose was chosen as the company’s logo – a reference to historical facts and, more specifically, to the royal Tudor dynasty, in whose coat of arms, as you know, the rose occupies a central place and whose name was used for the naming of the brand.
After several decades during which the brand remained in the shadow of Rolex and all of its models, even in their names, copied the same models of the parent company, 2009 arrived, when the corporation decided to invest in Tudor’s own path of development. This was shown at Baselworld 2009 and reinforced with the new advertising campaign: “Designed for Performance. Engineered for Elegance.” Tudor’s communication strategy is focused on the technical refinement of the models, and this is shown through the disappearance of the rose from the brand’s logo and the focus on the shield, which becomes the new logo of the brand.
Today, for the first time, we have the pleasure of presenting to your attention this interesting and new model for the brand. As most of you know, it is part of the series dedicated to the year of the launch of the brand’s first diver – the cult 7924, also called “Big Crown”, and more precisely in honour of the year of its market release. Today’s piece, however, is very special – it is the only one with a 24-hour indication. The model was first presented in 2021 and immediately became sought after and desired not only by fans of the brand, but also by watch collectors in general. And the version presented today is even more interesting – first introduced in 2025, it is Tudor’s answer to Rolex’s well-known and sought-after Polar. As fans of the Polar Explorer II, we can only applaud the appearance of this colour in the collection.
And despite the fact that the dial is not identical to the one used by Rolex, this opaline dial has its own charm, with a slightly grainy, slightly metallic and matte effect. And since the hands and markers are outlined in black – the so-called monochromatic presentation – the watch is not only readable at a glance, but also looks fantastic. The yellow 24-hour hand is the only coloured nuance in all this minimalist splendour.
The sporty spirit of the model is visible in everything – starting with the crown, which is ribbed and oversized, moving through the design of the dial, whose colour scheme uses only two colours – white and black, with a yellow accent on the 24-hour hand, and ending with the fixed steel bezel – all of this simply screams that this watch is not just any watch, and its kinship with its older brother, the Explorer II, is visible in many of these elements.
At its heart beats the brand’s in-house MT5652 movement – an automatic calibre with 70 hours of power reserve, 26 jewels and operating at 28,800 vibrations – a COSC-certified chronometer.
