In an industry that thrives on novelty, a handful of watch designs have stood the test of time, defying trends and technological shifts to remain in continuous production. These are the icons—timepieces whose DNA has been preserved across generations, evolving just enough to stay relevant, yet never straying from the core design that made them legendary. Here are the ten oldest watch designs still in production today, each with its own fascinating story of endurance.
It all starts with the Cartier Tank, launched in 1917 and inspired by the Renault tanks of World War I. Its sleek, rectangular form, with Roman numerals, chemin de fer minute track, and cabochon crown, has been worn by everyone from Jackie Kennedy to Andy Warhol. The Tank’s enduring charm lies in its simplicity—it’s a dress watch that doesn’t try too hard, and it never has to. Next is the Rolex Oyster, born in 1926 as the world’s first waterproof wristwatch. Its revolutionary screw-down crown and hermetically sealed case set the blueprint for the modern sports watch, while the Perpetual rotor, added in 1931, ensured the Oyster’s place in the history books as the first reliable automatic wristwatch.
That same year, 1931, Jaeger-LeCoultre introduced the Reverso—a rectangular watch with a clever case-flipping mechanism designed for polo players. Its clean Art Deco lines have barely changed since, and its ability to flip from dial to caseback has inspired countless iterations, from dual-time models to intricate enamelled artworks. Also in 1931, Longines unveiled the Lindbergh Hour Angle Watch, a collaboration with Charles Lindbergh that allowed pilots to calculate longitude mid-flight. Its large case, rotating bezel, and navigation markings make it one of the earliest true tool watches, and Longines continues to produce faithful reissues today.
Patek Philippe’s Calatrava, introduced in 1932, is perhaps the ultimate expression of minimalist elegance in watch design. With its round case, understated dial, and Bauhaus influences, the Calatrava set the template for the modern dress watch. Later iterations have added details like Clous de Paris bezels and officer’s casebacks, but the core design—a slim, elegant round watch—has remained unchanged for over 90 years. Rolex’s Oyster Perpetual, introduced in 1933, distilled the essence of the Oyster into a no-nonsense time-only watch, adding a Perpetual rotor for automatic winding and becoming the bedrock of Rolex’s catalogue.
The Rolex Datejust followed in 1945, introducing the first self-winding chronometer with a date window at 3 o’clock. The addition of the Cyclops lens in 1954 cemented its place as a Rolex signature. Then comes the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, which debuted in 1953 and is often credited as the first modern dive watch. With its unidirectional bezel, luminous markers, and 91-metre water resistance, it set the standard for underwater timekeeping—though recent research suggests it may have arrived a bit later than Blancpain claims. The Rolex Submariner, also introduced in 1953 (but released to the public in 1954), took the same formula and ran with it, creating the archetype for all dive watches that followed. The addition of a date function in 1969 and ceramic bezels in the 2010s kept the Submariner at the forefront of tool watch design.
Closing the list is the Omega Speedmaster, introduced in 1957 as a racing chronograph but forever immortalised as the Moonwatch after it accompanied NASA astronauts to the lunar surface in 1969. Its tachymeter bezel, black dial, and manual-wind chronograph movement have barely changed in over six decades, proving that some designs are simply timeless.
