Before Geneva Watch Days Go Inside Watch Week Aspen

Geneva Watch Days officially starts tomorrow and there will be much news filtering from that around-the-city show. But first, let’s take another look at a new genre of shows and, especially in America, how those shows are changing. The prime example: Watch Week Apsen, where the show unfolds across one of America’s most celebrated mountain towns and getting from one watch event to another means little more than walking a few blocks. Recently, I had the opportunity to attend the third annual event.

Having attended watch fairs around the world for decades, what struck me most about Watch Week Aspen was how little it felt like a watch show. There was no single exhibition hall and no rush to get from one end of a sprawling venue to another. Instead, watches, collectors, executives and events were scattered throughout downtown Aspen — most within an easily walkable 10-block radius.

In one direction were A. Lange & Söhne, Buccellati, Omega and Oliver Smith Jeweler; nearby were Hermès, Avi & Co., Meridian Jewelers and M.S. Rau, while Betteridge was just around the corner near The Little Nell. For four days, the boutiques, multi-brand retailers, galleries and other venues essentially became one sprawling watch show.

And what a setting.

Aspen in August offers a very different backdrop from Geneva in April or the Las Vegas watch and jewelry shows in June. It also offers a distinctly different experience than Aspen in winter. Between watch presentations and meetings, collectors were outside walking the town, sitting at cafés or, for those inclined to temporarily trade watches for wilderness, hiking or taking the Gondola up Aspen Mountain.

Evening events remained close by, including gatherings at Casterline | Goodman Gallery and Stranahan’s Whiskey Lodge, with the weekend culminating in a collectors’ dinner atop the W Aspen with sweeping mountain views.

That combination of serious watches and decidedly relaxed surroundings may be one reason Watch Week Aspen is gaining traction.

A Watch Community Takes Over Aspen

Founded in 2023 by Elizabeth Smith Hrubala and the team at Oliver Smith Jeweler in collaboration with the Aspen Chamber Resort Association and local retailers, Watch Week Aspen began as a way to bring together the watch community already developing in town.

This year, more than 300 attendees took part in 40 events involving 19 watch brands, retailers and industry participants. Increasingly, they aren’t simply people who happen to be vacationing or living in Aspen. Collectors traveled from the East Coast, West Coast and points in between specifically to attend.

The relatively intimate size is part of the appeal. There was time to look at watches, ask questions and actually talk to the executives who came to Aspen — including European CEOs, creative directors and U.S. brand presidents. Hermès, for example, brought Philippe Delhotal, Creative Director of Hermès Watches, from Switzerland. L. Leroy CEO Hugo Lesizza, Moritz Grossmann founder and CEO Christine Hutter and senior executives from Blancpain, A. Lange & Söhne, NORQAIN, Glashütte Original, Cyrus and others were also on hand.

For collectors accustomed to tightly scheduled appointments at the industry’s biggest fairs, that kind of casual access is significant.

New Watches — And Some Surprises

The watches themselves were equally important. This wasn’t simply a case of brands bringing existing collections to Aspen. There were rare and vintage pieces, watches only recently introduced and not yet widely seen in America — and several actual product debuts.

Glashütte Original used Watch Week Aspen to introduce its North American-exclusive SeaQ and SeaQ Panorama Date “Northern Tide” models. L. Leroy unveiled its new Vox Temporis during a wine-and-watchmaking event, and NORQAIN debuted its Independence Skeleton Titanium DLC at Oliver Smith Jeweler.

Elsewhere, collectors could explore A. Lange & Söhne’s Lumen watches, Hermès’ Le temps Suspendu, new and rare IWC watches at Meridian Jewelers, Omega Speedmasters and Buccellati’s highly distinctive jewelry watches. Avi & Co. showcased new and rare pieces, while M.S. Rau dipped into its extraordinary world of vintage watches and antiques, including one-of-a-kind finds.

Vintage watches got their own moment as well, with Analog Shift and Betteridge staging VintageFest, where collectors brought favorite pieces and spent time doing what collectors perhaps enjoy most: comparing watches and sharing the stories behind them.

Watches Move Outside

The beauty of using an entire town as the venue is that Watch Week Aspen didn’t have to remain behind boutique doors.

NORQAIN staged the event’s first 3K run, led by U.S. Brand President Emmanuel Bütler and joined by Olympic skier Alex Ferreira, followed later in the day by the brand’s Enjoy Life ice cream truck parked outside of Oliver Smith Jeweler. Gerald Charles combined its collector experience with tennis and pickleball games early one morning, and, of course, there were cocktail parties, demonstrations, presentations and gatherings throughout town.

Yet for me, the real charm wasn’t any one event. It was the ease with which everything blended together. You could spend an hour looking at complicated independent watches, walk a block or two and find yourself examining vintage pieces, then step back outside into the Colorado sunshine before heading to the next presentation. Sitting down and talking with collectors – every one happy to be showing off their wrists – was a highlight. No one was in a rush. There was an energy to it without the pressure that often accompanies the world’s larger watch fairs.

That doesn’t happen accidentally. Competing retailers had to agree to participate collectively. Brands had to commit watches and senior executives. Galleries and hospitality venues became part of the equation. And Aspen itself supplied the infrastructure — luxury retail, restaurants, hotels, outdoor activities and an unusually compact downtown.

The result is a collector event that feels more like a gathering than a show.

Smith Hrubala perhaps put it best after this year’s edition: “What matters most is the sense of connection the weekend creates, whether someone is discovering a new watchmaker, meeting the people behind a favorite brand, or simply sharing their passion with fellow collectors.”

After four days in Aspen, that sense of connection was difficult to miss. For one long weekend in August, watches didn’t simply come to town. They formed it.