{"id":557458,"date":"2026-06-27T20:55:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T20:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/557458\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T20:55:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T20:55:17","slug":"zendaya-wore-one-of-rolexs-most-fascinating-daytonas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/557458\/","title":{"rendered":"Zendaya Wore One of Rolex\u2019s Most Fascinating Daytonas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of all the power couples operating in Hollywood today, few attract more attention than the Zendaya-Tom Holland pairing<\/a>. While they play superheroes and Fremin warriors on-screen, they are otherworldly watch collectors in real life. Holland seems to have started building his assortment of pieces from Rolex<\/a>, Cartier, Patek Philippe<\/a>, and TAG Heuer<\/a> since the first Marvel check cashed while Zendaya is an ambassador for the Crown. They\u2019ve been combining their powers while promoting<\/a> Spider-Man: Brand New Day, but it\u2019s a solo outing from the actress that has wrist watchers buzzing.<\/p>\n

The Rolex Daytona is the most coveted watch in the current Rolex catalog. After releasing several new versions this year<\/a>, including one with a sexy enamel dial, it would make sense for Zendaya, as an ambassador for the brand, to wear one of the Crown\u2019s more recent releases. Instead, she rummaged around in the archives and pulled out one of the most fascinating\u2014and desirable\u2014Rolexes in the Crown\u2019s catalog, the ref. 16520 \u201cZenith\u201d Daytona.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

What makes a \u201cZenith\u201d Daytona<\/a> so interesting, you ask? For that, we have to rewind the clock somewhat and go way back into the Daytona\u2019s history. From the 1960s through 1988, Rolex employed hand-wound movements from the manufacturer Valjoux, which provided movements for many brands in Switzerland, in its flagship sports chronograph. Then, looking to outfit its watch with a more modern engine, it went knocking at Zenith\u2019s door.<\/p>\n

Why Zenith<\/a>? Because back in 1969, the Le Locle-based company invented one of the world\u2019s first automatic chronograph movements, the El Primero<\/a>. However, during the Quartz Crisis<\/a>, management\u2014then the American firm Zenith Radio Corp\u2014ordered the equipment required to produce for the movement destroyed. Little did they know that a rebellious watchmaker named Charles Vermot secretly hid it in an attic in the company\u2019s Swiss manufacture.<\/p>\n

When Vermot later revealed that he had meticulously hidden away every component necessary to make the El Primero movement, Zenith was able to restart production, and Rolex got the automatic chronograph movement it needed to upgrade the Daytona in 1988.<\/p>\n

These versions of the Daytona have become highly coveted<\/a>. This era of Daytona manufacturing, which ended around 2000 when Rolex<\/a> introduced its own in-house automatic chronograph movement, has a distinct look: subdials spaced closer to the minute track, tritium lume (with later production using LumiNova or Super Lumi-Nova), and distinctive bezel typography all give these watches away. They also represent one of the final eras before complete vertical integration took over at Rolex<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Of all the power couples operating in Hollywood today, few attract more attention than the Zendaya-Tom Holland pairing.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[268],"tags":[434,18,117,19,17,112266,8077,20505,238458,806],"class_list":["post-557458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-rolex","tag-textbelowcentergridwidth","tag-watches","tag-watches-of-the-week","tag-web"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}