Dubai Watch Week started just 10 years ago, in a smaller gallery-like space with a few exhibitors. It’s hard to imagine that as I arrive for its seventh edition, with my back against the towering Burj Khalifa, waiting for the doors to open on the 200,000-square-feet venue inside Burj Park, with 90 exhibiting brands waiting inside to welcome us. Standing among the industry’s leading journalists and serious collectors, I think we all share the same sentiment.
But the strength of Dubai Watch Week can’t be ascribed only to the might of the Seddiqi family, powerful though they are. The event is also what it is today because of Hind Seddiqi, the granddaughter of Ahmed Qasim Seddiqi and the first female family member to join the group’s corporate office. She runs Seddiqi Holding’s marketing department, overseeing the group’s omni-channel strategy, including driving the retailer’s digital transformation, and is also the CEO of Dubai Watch Week, responsible for its strategic positioning, programming and long-term vision.
When Seddiqi envisioned Dubai Watch Week in 2015, she wanted an event that, from the outset, was framed less as a trade fair and more as an open forum where real conversations around horology took place. From a retailer-led gathering, Dubai Watch Week quickly became a non-commercial, biennial platform for education, debate and collecting, first attracting independent watchmakers and, more recently, large groups, as the event’s scale and ambition for the event grew with every edition.
“There’s so much we want to do, but at the event it’s difficult for us to focus on other things,” Seddiqi explains. “We felt there’s still a need for support in the industry. There’s a need for research. So we decided we needed to create initiatives other than just a five-day exhibition every two years. That’s why we announced a competition to support upcoming brands and designers. That’s why we announced a research paper. We have so many other ideas in the pipeline that, hopefully in time, we’ll be announcing.”
A core mission of Dubai Watch Week, to support independent watchmaking, remains central, even as big shots such as Rolex, Tudor and Bvlgari, make their presence known. Many exhibiting brands remain independents, and there are special sections dedicated to micro brands such as Behrens and Kuruno Tokyo and ultra-niche brands like David Candaux and Artime.
First and foremost, Dubai Watch Week was a place for conversations. To that end, Seddiqi and her team have dedicated time and effort to secure important speakers and focus only on the most pertinent topics. The industry’s support for the Seddiqi family is evident, as the brands’ CEOs and top management descend in Dubai. This edition hosted the first CEO Roundtable, for whichh Seddiqi personally wrote to Audemars Piguet’s Ilaria Resta, Chopard’s Karl-Friederich Scheufele, Breitling’s Georges Kern and Hublot’s Julien Tornare, inviting them to come together to discuss the various challenges and opportunities that are facing the Swiss watchmaking industry.
Seddiqi believes that luxury today is driven not by products but experience, saying that the younger generation wants to be shown what goes on behind the scenes. The masterclasses offer that: lume painting with Wristcheck, leather marquetry with Hermès, gold hammering with Gerald Charles, hand-engraving and miniature painting with La Fabrique du Temps, and even wall-clock making and mosaic tray-making designed for younger attendees. Masterclasses are always among the first activities that become fully booked out, and some collectors attend Dubai Watch Week specifically for these experiences.
“It’s a big responsibility and it gets challenging by the year, because we can’t grow bigger than this. I’m hoping with the creation of the Advisory Committee that we’ll get more insight from the industry. Whatever we’re designing, we have the collectors in our mind, so we’ll make sure we won’t disappoint them in 2027.”
