At sunrise, Burj Park feels suspended between stillness and spectacle: the fountain quiet, the pavilions warming, the Burj Khalifa casting a long, cool shadow across the fairgrounds. Into this moment steps Dubai Watch Week 2025, an event that has matured into a cultural anchor point for collectors and creators seeking substance over noise.
Founded in 2015 by retailer Ahmed Seddiqi the fair has always positioned itself as a non-commercial, education-led platform: open to the public with free registration, heavy on dialogue and access, light on hard selling. Ten years on, that formula has scaled rather than diluted.
More than 90 confirmed brands—from longstanding maisons to independents—occupy a layout that feels closer to a curated design district than a trade show. The founding principle remains unchanged: direct access. No VIP separation, no commercial booths pushing novelties—just watchmaking, conversation, and a democratic approach to an inherently exclusive craft.
The major maisons—Rolex, Audemars Piguet, Van Cleef & Arpels, Bulgari, Chopard, Hublot, Chanel, TAG Heuer, Louis Vuitton—anchor the week. The independents counterpoint their scale with intimacy: open benches, watchmakers working within arm’s reach, and pieces that reveal themselves in controlled bursts of detail.
Dubai Watch Week’s spatial language is unmistakably intentional—soft gradients, precise geometry, circulation patterns designed to slow visitors down. The result is a reframing of contemporary horology as an active design culture, less tethered to heritage and more attuned to proportion, craft and modern aesthetics.
The fair’s masterclass programme continues to act as its intellectual backbone, and this year’s slate leans heavily into hands-on technique taught by maisons and ateliers known for their credibility at the bench.
Highlights include:
The tone remains consistent across sessions: no theatrics, no novelty-driven spectacle—just technique expressed plainly and precisely.
At the centre of Dubai Watch Week’s discourse is the Horology Forum, expanded to a series of substantive sessions. The fair opened with “The Time to Act Is Now: A Note to the Watch Industry”, a rare public appearance by Rolex CEO Jean-Frédéric Dufour, in conversation with Abdul Hamied Seddiqi. The significance was not lost on attendees: moments of this visibility from Dufour are uncommon, making the session a clear early highlight.
Later in the week, the CEO Roundtable—with Georges Kern, Ilaria Resta, Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, and Julien Tornare, moderated by veteran journalist Andy Hoffman—is expected to set the intellectual temperature for the months ahead. Additional talks include Arabic-language forums on Gulf luxury, a design-competition finale, a conversation with Alexia Genta on Gérald Genta’s legacy, and a Bulgari-led discussion on the reinterpretation of icons.
Acting as the fair’s contemporary counterweight, the Creative Hub presents short, design-focused sessions connecting horology to architecture, photography, cinema and visual storytelling.
This year’s programming features Georges Kern on the evolution of Breitling’s design identity, Jean Arnault detailing the Louis Vuitton Watch Prize, workshops by Van Cleef & Arpels and L’École, the premiere of Wei Koh’s “Man of the Hour”, and Leica’s exploration of photographic precision. Every session unfolds in a studio-clean, LED-lit environment designed to heighten clarity and focus.
Set apart from the fair’s primary flow, the Collectors’ Lounge offers a quiet, acoustically warm retreat. A central showcase marks Ahmed Seddiqi’s 75th anniversary, featuring collaborative editions created with select maisons. Bonhams, the fair’s auction partner, anchors discussions on provenance, valuation and evolving collecting behaviour across the Gulf.
The CEO Roundtable and House of Horology late-week sessions are widely expected to define the fair’s intellectual output and shape the mood heading into 2026. Creative Hub Programming Upcoming appearances by Kern, Arnault, Van Cleef & Arpels, L’École, Wei Koh and Leica will likely steer the design language of the months ahead.
A Concentrated Weekend in the Collectors’ Lounge With Bonhams present anniversary editions on display, the final days promise tighter, more nuanced conversations on collecting patterns and the rise of independents. Several maisons are also expected to offer detailed walkthroughs of their 2024–25 collections—often more revealing than formal unveilings.
Dubai Watch Week, this year is more articulate, more attuned to cultural nuance, and increasingly confident in its position as the watch world’s most open and intellectually grounded platform. The first half demonstrated its depth; the second will reveal its influence.
For collectors, designers and anyone charting the future of contemporary watchmaking, the days ahead at Burj Park are the ones that will matter.