While Rolex’s lady-Date-Just collection is actually a scaled-down version of a men’s watch, the two collections have very different personalities. Since the full-size models gave up their flagship status in 1956, they have positioned themselves more between the out-and-out dress and the brand’s legendary professional collection.
They have both a simple great that makes them the ideal match for more formal wear, but with an unassuming strength which means they don’t look out of place when called upon to be used as a tool watch.
Much of that is down to their styling and diminutive proportions. Until relatively recently, a 26mm example was as huge as you could get—positively tiny by modern standards. Today those dimensions have increased to keep in line with current fashions, and the series starts at 28mm. In fact, that is the only model officially called a ‘Lady-Datejust’ in the contemporary collection, but the Rolex website also lists the 31mm, 34mm, and even the 36mm pieces on its ‘Women’s’ pages.
It carried on where its predecessor had left off, maintaining its record as the best-selling model Replica Rolex produces. No other replica watches, not even brand icons like the Submariner, the GMT-Master, the Daytona, not even the men’s version, outsells the Lady-Datejust.
By the 1980s and the arrival of the ref. 69173, that range had become really strange. Rolex seemed to be making it their mission to build a watch that appealed to just about every possible sensibility, whether the wearer in question wanted something discreet and quietly refined, all the way through to some in-your-face grandstanding.
The champagne dial, paired with that two-tone case, is the typical Rolex visual, and similarly black, white and silver each has an ideal all-encompassing versatility. Moreover, the brand issued an array of distinctly feminine shades in delicate pinks and purples, some even with intricate patterns.
And, in the more luxurious nature of the watch, many of the dials are made of semi-precious stones. Hour markers could be anything from Roman or Arabic numerals, simple stick batons, or, more often than not, beautiful handset diamonds.
To conclude, one other innovation that debuted on the 691XX series, the former acrylic crystal covering the dial was retired and replaced by the scratch-resistant sapphire crystal Rolex had first used on the Ref. 5100 Beta 21 quartz prototype in 1970. As with all of the brand’s date watches since the mid-50s, bar the Sea-Dweller, it featured the Cyclops magnifying lens over the date window.