Rolex is once again living the motto “never let’em know your next move.” The brand’s newest release was just dropped randomly on a weekday with a rare complication.
The company has just unveiled the Perpetual Padellone, a 39mm annual calendar with moonphase, marking the brand’s most significant complication release since the 1950s.
Despite the name, the Padellone isn’t technically a perpetual calendar. “Perpetual” here refers to the product line Rolex launched in 2023 alongside the 1908, not the complication itself.
A true perpetual calendar accounts for varying month lengths automatically, for decades, without correction. The Padellone is an annual calendar: its new “Haplos” system distinguishes between 30- and 31-day months, but it still needs one manual adjustment a year, when February turns to March.
What it does have is an instantaneous jump function, so the day, date, and month all shift simultaneously at midnight, a feature Rolex has patented alongside the rest of the mechanism.
The watch runs on Rolex’s new Calibre 7190, a 5Hz movement built around the same Dynapulse escapement introduced in the Land-Dweller, with a 66-hour power reserve.
It comes in two metals: 18K Everose gold with a white dial, or 950 platinum with an ice-blue dial. It’s named after the vintage Rolex ref. 8171, a complete-calendar moonphase from the early 1950s that Italian collectors nicknamed “Padellone,” or “large frying pan,” for its case shape.
Rolex almost never does this (for real)
Rolex has spent decades deliberately staying out of the complication business that brands like Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet built their reputations on.
Since 1953, its calendar output has amounted to the Sky-Dweller’s annual calendar and a brief run of Cellini moonphases before that line got folded into the 1908 collection. A genuine annual calendar with a moonphase, built on a new in-house movement, is a real departure from that pattern.
Just because it’s new doesn’t mean they’re slacking. At $59,000 to $72,800, the Padellone undercuts comparable annual calendars from the traditional complication houses by a wide margin, while still sitting well above Rolex’s usual sports-watch territory.
That’s Rolex using its manufacturing scale to make a case most other brands can’t: real complexity, without the traditional complication upcharge attached.
Where to buy it
The Rolex Perpetual Padellone is available now through authorized Rolex dealers, priced from $59,000 to $72,800 depending on metal and bracelet.
