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Rolex Opens Expansive Boutique in Singapore Featuring Permanent Exhibition

One of the largest Rolex stores in the world is now open in Singapore and even includes a first-of-its-kind exhibition of inventions and achievements.

Rolex and Singapore retailer Cortina Watch have just opened an enormous 513 square metre – that’s over 5500 square feet – store in the city state, complete with a permanent exhibition explaining Rolex, from its key innovations to landmark timepieces like the Deepsea Challenge.

The sweeping boutique is a powerful statement by the world’s luxury watch brand, one that is particularly resonant given the poor demand for luxury watches in Asia.

Located in Marina Square, a mall sited near the business district, the new Rolex store is one of the largest single-brand watch stores in South East Asia. By comparison, the recently opened Patek Philippe boutique in Singapore is half as large, and it’s the brand’s largest in the region. Naturally the store is outfitted in typical Rolex fashion, a conservative style that’s late 20th century with lots of green, beige and shades of brown.

The private room inside the store

Not only is the size unusual, the new store has a unique feature in the rear, The Rolex Exhibition. Inspired by The Rolex Experience, an even larger, 800 square metre store and museum in Shanghai, the Singapore store features a permanent exhibition comprising three sections, starting with The Rolex Way, a dictionary that explains key innovations developed by Rolex, from the Cerachrom ceramic bezel to the recent, high-efficiency Chronergy escapement in the new Datejust 41.

The Rolex Way

It continues with The World of Rolex, a video that’s all about the brand’s philanthropy as well as its ambassadors in the arts, sports and exploration. But the most interesting is the final section, Rolex and the Deep. This covers Rolex’s accomplishments in deep sea exploration, namely the two expeditions in 1960 and 2012 that visited the deepest place on Earth, Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench. Both experimental wristwatches that accompanied each expedition, the Deep Sea Special and Deepsea Challenge, are on show, as are models of the submarines that took the watches to unprecedented depths.