Some say that every week is fashion week in Paris.
The French capital is easily the world’s most stylish city; home to many of the world’s most famous designers and fashion brands such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Christian Louboutin, Givenchy and Saint Laurent, just to name a few. Paris Fashion Week is a sartorial institution – one so influential and robust that it’s actually held twice a year. We’re currently in the middle of this year’s spring/summer Paris Fashion Week, which is running from September 28th to October 6th.
Naturally, Paris Fashion Week not only attracts the world’s top designers but also the world’s most famous people. It’s the place to see and be seen, so all sorts of celebrities make their way to The City of Light for Paris Fashion Week. We’ve seen everyone from Brooklyn Beckham to Demi Moore and even Cardi B make an appearance. But there’s been one rather surprisingly celebrity appearance at PFW: tennis champ Roger Federer.
The 20-time Grand Slam singles title winner isn’t who you’d necessarily expect to show up to such an event. But turns out even old dogs can learn new tricks: the 40-year-old seen sitting in the front row in a crisp Dior suit, with a rather unexpectedly flashy watch perched on his wrist: a rose gold Rolex Sky-Dweller.
The Sky-Dweller is Rolex’s youngest model, having only hit the market in 2012, and is one of the brand’s largest and most unique watches. It’s Rolex’s first and only annual calendar timepiece – which also happens to feature dual time zones – and is an interesting hybrid between a dress watch and a tool watch that’s often overlooked by Rolex buyers.
A GMT watch like the famous GMT-Master, the Sky-Dweller has a truly unique approach to telling time that’s quite unlike any other watch. The dial of the Sky-Dweller indicates the local time and date via the centre hands and 3 o’clock date window – so far, so normal – but also indicates the month by the small rectangular windows next to the hour markers, which change from white to red. The 24-hour disc in the middle of the dial displays an additional time zone, intended to be your home time.
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The iconic Rolex fluted bezel, made famous on watches like the Day-Date, is actually functional on the Sky-Dweller. Rolex calls it the ‘Ring Command Bezel’ and it is used in conjunction with the screw-down crown to adjust the two time zones as well as the date and month.
Unlike many of Rolex’s other watches, the Sky-Dweller has never been offered in straight stainless steel, always being totally constructed from precious metal (specifically, gold) or featuring some combination of gold and steel. As a Rolex ambassador, Federer has the pick of the litter when it comes to their timepieces: he very rarely wears anything other than a stainless steel piece, so it’s a rather unusual choice for him to go with such a big, rose gold watch; a blowout piece for Paris Fashion Week, we suppose.
See how the Rolex Sky-Dweller’s unique setting process works below.
While it’s nice to see Roger in such good (and remarkably stylish) form hobnobbing at PFW, he’s actually had a rather average 2021 tennis-wise. He bowed out of the Australian and US Open as well as a number of ATP Tour events, while only recording a fairly average performance in the events he did make an appearance at this year.
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Of course, it’s no secret why he’s been struggling: he’s been suffering from an ongoing knee injury and has undergone numerous surgeries over the last two years, the GOAT revealing in August this year that he’ll be “out of the game for many months”.
Fingers crossed his appearance at PFW is a good omen that he’s on the mend and able to return to the tennis court sooner rather than later.