Robin Swithinbank Shares His Thoughts On Dubai Watch Week

December 01, 2021

Imagine if you will, youre at Dubai Watch Weeks chi-chi Cipriani pop-up, and who do you see noshing nonchalantly on gnocchi and chatting idly in the midday sun but Jean-Frdric Dufour and Fran?ois-Paul Journe.Such is the unbound informality of Dubais biennial micro-fair that for the seasoned visitor, this little mise en scne wouldnt have done much to surprise, even if it did leave intrigued diners to pretend we werent talking about what it was the industry overlords C one corporate behemoth, one all-conquering indie C might be talking about. (The burrata? The wisdom of wearing a jacket and tie in 90-degree heat? Whether Francis Ford Coppola could be persuaded to make a film about Dufours secret life as Rolex boss?). Claire wearing H. Moser & Cie. Pioneer Centre Seconds Nageswaran wearing Richard Mille RM-10 The Dufour x Journe afternoon focaccia collaboration was the fifth edition of Dubai Watch Week in microcosm. Organized by Middle Eastern watch retail giant Ahmed Seddiqi & Sons, the event is relaxed, open, a magnet for power C and bloody hot. Theres barely anywhere to hide C not from the sun, and not from prying eyes. It is, in a way, the industrys antithesis and even the antidote to the rictus preciousness of the Swiss spring watch fairs, made all the more laissez-aller by the Covid-catalyzed casualization of luxury and the inexorable rise of T-shirts and sneakers as suitable business attire (yes, yes, me too). Warda wearing Cartier Panthere Stainless Steel Dillon wearing Furlan Marri Havana Salmon and Rolex Daytona 116509 Barbara wearing Bell & Ross BRS Diamond Eagle Carlos wearing Trilobe Model Nuit Fantastique Bopha wearing Purnell Model Escape Primo WPM Baby Pink Alan wearing Ulysse Nardin Diver X Skeleton Black Limited edition 175 pieces Alexandra wearing Bovet Re?cital 23 For five days every other November, the Gate in the heart of the Emirati citys financial centre has become a place of chance encounters and not-so-secret open-air assignations, where superstars of the watchmaking world rub shoulders with would-be watch aficionados, whose entry to the event has cost them no more than the price of their email address (and a plane ticket, perhaps). Its quite good fun. Its also picking up speed. Despite Covid and its attendant travel challenges, and perhaps lured by the headline acts of Rolex, Audemars Piguet, Hublot, and Tudor, organizers were saying 16,000 had floated through barriers you could storm with a plastic fork, almost double the number of two years ago. Dubai Watch Week, once a sandblasted outlier in a calendar flush with high-profile international watch events C in 2019, 81,000 people made it to Baselworld C is now increasingly an industry focal point, a welcome catch-all for watchmakings most enterprising C and most opportunistic. While some of the games professional ankle-flashers and wrist-dazzlers embraced the moment with arms wide open (and colorful plumage), others came in off-book and worked the venues with existential vigor. Montblancs ex-MD Davide Cerrato, newly crowned boss of the defibrillated HYT, was among the non-exhibitors plugged into the lifeline the event provides. Tariq wearing Rolex Day-Date 18239 White Gold Onyx Dial and Rolex Day-Date Green Diamond Dial Claude wearing Patek Philippe Unique Sky Moon Tourbillon Titanium Ref. 5001T Fiona wearing Fiona Kruger Chaos Purple Pow Mohammed wearing Audemars Piguet Skeleton Open worked 39 mm 15306OR.ZZ.D088CR.01 (year 2012) and Rolex Daytona Sodalite 116519 (year 2000) Yes, there were new watches, but most were regional limited-editions produced to entice locals celebrating the 50th anniversary of the United Arab Emirates. Others took the opportunity to woo an in-the-flesh audience with re-runs of spring launches previously rendered digital by third C or was it fourth? C waves of the pandemic. Frederique Constant nearly had us with a thrusting presentation of its whizzy and mostly unfathomable Monolith escapement, but as one nonplussed colleague whispered in my ear while the companys neatly coiffured MD Niels Eggerding prowled the stage (like a young Jean-Frederic Dufour), hadnt we already seen this back in the spring? Indeed, we had. Oris led the charge with a novel duo, a rectangular watch (called, thats right, Rectangular) and a dashing deep blue-dialed version of its signature Big Crown Pointer Date, now humming to the tune of its Calibre 403 five-day automatic. Girard-Perregaux went from Infinity to Eternity with a pair of enamel-dialled Laureatos and a Cats Eye, and then back to 1889 with a dizzying reworking for the wrist of its La Esmeralda Tourbillon pocket watch, all to bring the curtain down on its 230th anniversary year. Urwerk metaled up with a bracelet version of its UR-100V, dubbed Full Titanium Jacket, creating a watch that looks like its already survived the apocalypse. Ulysse Nardin slapped a yellow rubber strap and a Carbonium bezel to its Diver X Skeleton Black, while CEO Patrick Pruniaux reminded us, not unreasonably, that horologically supercharged dive watches dont grow on corals. And then Moser, in typical fashion, split the commentariat with its Russified Heritage Bronze Since 1928 Limited Edition. Olivier wearing Armin Strom Gravity Equal Force Geethu Seiko Model 5 21 Jewels Automatic Manuel wearing Louis Erard x Alain Silberstein Le Semainier Sultan wearing UAE AP Royal Oak Openworked Rose gold Skeleton and Patek Phillippe Aquanaut 5167 Which left the chat. Dubai Watch Week may only happen once every two years, but its traveling Horology Forum sub-brand is an annual to-do. This is where the organizers attempt to spice up debate by calling on figures from within and without the industrys cloistered walls to chew over matters as immutable as watch collecting and as peppery as brands potentially bogus claims of sustainability. These were all well intended and sometimes interesting, although this attendee would have had more senior industry types called to the stage for questioning, and fewer outsider observers, whose industry knowledge was frequently peripheral. A sustainability panel without Panerais Pontrou or Oriss Studer, the latter of whom was on site and very visible, felt like a missed opportunity. But even then. Im glad to say that the gladness and glad-handing of Dubai Watch Week left watch-fair obituarists pens still hovering over a blankish page (even with Baselworld now arrested by the Siren call of its self-inflicted mortality), although the lingering memory of this years edition may yet be of the poor unfortunate (and unfortunately poorly prepared) host of the events first forum, who bombed on stage after introducing Georges Kern as the CEO of Breitling South Africa. Kerns remit, as the industry veteran was only too quick to point out, is somewhat more universal than that. And so too, if that lunch date is anything to go by, will be Dubai Watch Weeks influence for years to come. Nawaf wearing Cartier Dubai Watch Club Limited Edition Fatima wearing Van Cleef & Arpels Alhambra Fahad wearing Gerald Charles GC3.0 Maestro 3.0 Premier 2021 Rose Gold Joelle wearing Cartier Tank Francaise Steel George wearing Ressence Type 2 Lionel wearing Montres KF Modele 8 Spirograph Tourbillon Rose Gold Customized Hassan wearing Angelus x Arab Watch Club Limited Edition of 15 Harith wearing Patek Philippe Aquanaut 5968. Georges wearing AP Royal Oak 15400 ST 41 mm Jason wearing Manufacture Royale Micromegas Unique Piece Marina wearing Henry London HL 39 LM 016268 Michael wearing Fiona Kruger Chaos Black Bang Robin Swithinbank is an independent journalist, who has written for?HODINKEE?about?his life in Swatches,?among?other things. He is a regular contributor to?The New York Times International, Financial Times, GQ,?and?Robb Report.?He is also Harrods' Contributing Watch Editor.Photos by Andrea Salerno Jcome