When Dubai Watch Week debuted in 2015, organizers and brand executives alike said they thought it was time for the region to have a major event on the world horology calendar. And this year, with 68 brands scheduled to participate in the event Nov. 16-20, it seems they were right. Watches are not sold at…
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In 2017, when Karine Szegedi, a partner at Deloitte Switzerland, oversaw the company’s annual Swiss watch industry study, the hottest topics among brand executives were the strength of the Swiss franc, the Swiss Made label and smartwatches. At the time, sustainability wasn’t “even a conversation,” Ms. Szegedi said on a video call last month. Deloitte’s…
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It was a Monday morning in mid-September and summer vacation was over for the five master’s degree students enrolled in what their university describes as Europe’s only diploma program in watch design. “Why I am here?” said Aloïs Sauvage, 23, repeating the question he had been asked. “Because I love watches and the universe of…
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In the early 1990s, when Leyla Uysal was in grade school, she and her family lived in Suruc, what was then a small town in the Kurdish region of Turkey, near its southern border with Syria. They would leave it only twice a year — when they attended a festival in Sanilurfa, the nearest big…
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Some watch designers are inspired by the grand beauty and rich history of mechanical watches. But for Jiro Katayama, a Tokyo-based watch designer, it is all about the gears and pinions, elements of the industrial world where he began his career. That influence — from growing up in car-crazy Japan of the 1980s to the…
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The charity auction Only Watch has raised nearly 100 million euros over the past 18 years, and watch executives have credited it with uniting fiercely competitive brands around a charitable cause, fostering collaborations and sparking creativity. But just days before its scheduled Nov. 5 auction in Geneva, the fund-raiser canceled its 10th edition in response…
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It all started in early 2021 when Philip Chuah, a watch enthusiast in Singapore, asked some local artisans about the cost of a custom alligator strap for his Omega Speedmaster Racing model. They said 400 Singapore dollars ($290). “I was only earning about 1,000 a month, so that’s almost half my pay on just a…
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Since joining the Swiss watchmaker Breitling in April 2020, Aurelia Figueroa has overseen what many people in the watch trade have described as one of the industry’s most ambitious efforts to trace, document and transform a supply chain, launching a traceable watch and working to hit specific emission reduction goals. An example of that focus…
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For some time, storm clouds have been gathering over the less expensive end of the Swiss watch industry. Smartwatches, particularly the Apple Watch, have flooded the marketplace, inundating the production of traditionally styled Swiss watches that retail for less than $1,000. But Tissot, the largest brand in that segment by estimated production volume and sales,…
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