The Lepple jewelry store, located in the German city of Esslingen am Neckar, in the Stuttgart region, Baden-Württemberg state, apologized on Thursday for having used an image of Fidel Castro to promote the luxury watch brand Rolex.
“The portrait of Fidel Castro has been removed and discarded this Thursday morning,” the owner of Lepple assured 14ymedio. “We were not aware of all the terrible crimes attributed to Castro and we have made sure that this image is never used again in any promotion or activity of the store,” he justified.
He clarified that the Rolex brand had nothing to do with the use of the image and did not suggest its use in the Leppel window. Neither photography nor Fidel Castro “are in any way involved with Rolex.”
“We send our deepest apologies to those whom we may have offended by using this image,” he concluded.
The photograph of the Cuban dictator, smiling while smoking and revealing a Rolex under his sleeve, was denounced on her social networks by the singer Aymée Nuviola, who discovered her while walking around Esslingen.
“The Rolex enunciated from the windows of the Ladas fulfilled an important assignment. They were the attributes, the investiture. They fulfilled the important task of enhancing our dignity”
It is not surprising that Castro is associated with products of all kinds, including luxury, which some brands and establishments, both on the Island and worldwide, take advantage of for advertising. The most emblematic product is undoubtedly the Cohiba cigar and its different lines, which Castro ordered to be manufactured in 1967 to entertain presidents and diplomats allied with the regime, and which has just generated almost three million euros in income for Habanos, SA
The watch magazine Revolution posted a Article in 2018 that explored Castro’s relationship with “the Crown,” the symbol of Rolex. Several photographs show him wearing the famous Rolex Submariner 5513, which he used for diving, one of his favorite hobbies.
Also, like the Cohiba cigar, Castro used to give watches of this brand to prominent officials and faithful agents. The testimony of Norberto Fuentes attests to this in his book sweet cuban warriors (1999), which refers to the “shameful Cuban users of Rolex”, he among them.
“The Rolex enunciated from the windows of the Ladas fulfilled an important assignment,” said Fuentes about the “senior staff” of the regime. “They were the attributes, the investiture. They fulfilled the important task of enhancing our dignity, which – like all legitimate dignity – is physical. The cream of the fraternity of revolutionary combatants.”
The attachment of the leaders of the revolution to their Rolexes was such that, when Ernesto Guevara was captured in Bolivia in 1967, the Argentine wore two of these watches on his wrist. One belonged to a dead commander, the other was his. One of Guevara’s last requests to the captain Gary Pradothe Bolivian soldier who captured him, was to save his watches for when he was released.
Some time later, in 1983, Prado sent the Argentine watch to his family in Havana. In exchange for the souvenir, the Castro government gave him a new Rolex.
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