For most people in the luxury watch trade, 2025 lived up to its promise as the Year of the Snake—it was indeed a year of shedding. Rolex shed its reputation for favoring “evolution over revolution” in April when it unveiled the Land-Dweller, featuring a game-changing new movement. Brands continued to shed retail partners as they embraced a direct sales model, a phenomenon embodied by the proliferation of monobrand boutiques across the country and the world. Mostly, though, watchmakers shed sales as worries over inflation and lingering economic uncertainty, amplified by the yo-yoing tariffs, chilled the primary market, dimming prospects for growth. I don’t pretend to know the answers to these questions, but I have some ideas about where to look for them. On the product front, it can be helpful to reflect on what was happening three years ago. That’s about the time when 2026 models were conceived and/or developed. In early 2023,..
