Dubai is a nation of proud boasts: the world’s tallest tower, the Burj Khalifa, pierces the desert sky, a 21st-century riposte to the Pharos of Alexandria that was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Another marvel is the world’s largest Rolex shop. If you visit nothing else in Dubai, see this and pay homage to the dynasty that built it: the Seddiqis.
This year Ahmed Seddiqi & Sons celebrates 70 years in business, making it 21 years older than the UAE, the nation in which it is based—famous as one of the world’s great entrepôts with a benign tax regime, favourable winter climate and shopping malls so big they accommodate ski slopes. Back in 1952, the founder Ahmed Seddiqi (right, centre of image, with his son Ibrahim) needed Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, the late ruler of Dubai, to write to Rolex to vouch for his credentials. Things were quieter then.
“The only airport was an RAF airstrip, we had one shop and my father started with a popular brand called the West End Watch Company,” recalls Abdulmagied, who opened the second shop in 1969 and now helms the family firm with his brother Abdul Hamied.
Today, numbers speak for themselves: 60 brands, 51 locations and four generations later, the brothers are happy that the firm is one of the world’s top 10 watch retailers and even happier that the future of the business is secure in the hands of the next generation, which has been responsible for adding the Dubai Watch Week (catering by Cipriani) to the calendar of must-attend horological conclaves.
At Seddiqi, training in watches starts early. Among the events at Dubai Watch Week is a Christie’s Kid’s Auction and when you are invited to dinner at the home of Abdul Hamied’s daughter, Hind, the first thing her pre-teen children will ask is what you are wearing on your wrist. “If it is anything less than a Rolex they are not impressed,” chuckles grandfather Hamied indulgently.— N.F.
