Long overdue and a natural step to respond to the growing importance of the Asian market in the luxury watch industry, Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie will bring the most prestigious international watch exhibition outside Switzerland to the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center this September.
The Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie is the organiser behind the massive annual international watch exhibition “Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie” (SIHH) in Geneva, and although the rumour of an Asian equivalent exhibition has been in the air for some six months, the event has just been confirmed by the communication released by the Foundation. The press release stated that it will be held in the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center between 25th to 28th September of 2013, and the exhibition will be officially called “Watches & Wonders”.
Although our source insisted that “Watches & Wonders” will be an additional and separate event from SIHH, there is persistent speculation if the Asian event will gradually and eventually lessen the dominating significance of the annual SIHH.
It is no secret that a huge percentage of world wide luxury watch sales in Asia, America and Europe are to customers from North Asia. Other than the growing affluent South American consumers, the rest of the world hasn’t really bought that many luxury watches.
As it is, some SIHH participating brands are already expected to launch some important new timepieces in the coming Hong Kong exhibition, and it will be reasonable to assume that the “Watches & Wonders” exhibition will at least share some of the SIHH’s limelight.
Officially, “WATCHES&WONDERS is the first event to be organised by the leading Fine Watch Maisons in Asia.”. however the Foundation predecessor – International Committee of Fine Luxury Watchmaking (CIHH) has done the same exhibition 8 years ago (September 2004) at the Beijing Forbidden City.
Whatever the outcome, we can expect more exciting times ahead for the Haute Horlogerie fans.
Jaw
