A decade of ticking stories finds its crescendo in 2025: Dubai Watch Week celebrates ten years of bringing watchmaking out of glass vitrines and into real life. Organized by Ahmed Seddiqi & Sons, the milestone edition returns to Dubai with a bigger public program, a sharpened focus on hands-on learning, and conversations that stretch from craft to culture. Expect major brands beside daring independents, workshops where you smell the oil and feel the brass, and forums where the industry speaks frankly about the future. It’s free, it’s open, and it’s where first-timers stand shoulder to shoulder with seasoned collectors.
The second hand jumps, crisp and decisive, a bright tick in a quiet morning. A watchmaker leans into his bench light, breath held, a sliver of steel pinched between tweezers. Around him: the soft clink of tools, the hiss of an espresso, the murmur of a collector explaining why patina feels like memory. This is the pulse of Dubai Watch Week — and in 2025, that pulse turns ten.
In a city that loves to make the future visible, the anniversary edition of Dubai Watch Week invites everyone to get close to time itself. The event, founded and hosted by Ahmed Seddiqi & Sons, has grown from a niche gathering into a global meeting point for watch lovers, makers, and the simply curious. The promise for 2025: more rooms where stories are told by ticking hands, more chances to touch the craft, and more dialogues that connect the tiny parts inside a movement to the big ideas outside — design, culture, even sustainability.
Walk in and you’ll find a layout that favors wandering and stumbling into discovery. A young couple peeks into a loupe for the first time. A seasoned independent is sketching a bridge on a napkin, explaining to a teenager why a bevel can make you fall in love. A brand rep whispers, “Listen,” and you do — to the soft, percussion-like rhythm of a century-old complication doing exactly what it was born to do.
That mix — high craft, open atmosphere — is the point. Dubai Watch Week remains free to attend, designed as a civic festival for horology rather than a closed trade show. The iconic Horology Forum returns with unscripted conversations and sharp questions. Masterclasses and hands-on ateliers expand, letting visitors assemble, regulate, or finish components under the calm gaze of master watchmakers. The Creative Hub hums with design talks that cross-pollinate watches with architecture, fashion, and digital art. And yes, a 10th-anniversary spotlight means special editions, archival stories, and maker meet-ups you’ll want to put on your calendar.
Between sessions, the social life of the event unfolds in small, sparkling moments. A maker unscrews a caseback and a tiny gasp ripples through the crowd. A visitor records the beat on their phone — click, click — and grins. Someone in a linen jacket leans over and says, almost conspiratorial, “It’s different when you hear it, right?” It is.
Practical, too: pre-registration is recommended, and arriving early keeps you close to workshops that fill up fast. Comfortable shoes, curious eyes, and a willingness to linger will take you far. Families are welcome; kids often end up hypnotized by balance wheels, which is a victory for future watch lovers everywhere.
For brands and creatives, 2025 is a stage and a sounding board. You’ll see the majors, of course, but the thrill often comes from independents — the tiny ateliers, the makers with ideas slightly left of center, the ones who light up when you ask about their first prototype. The anniversary adds a thread of reflection: ten years of dialogue have made Dubai a serious horological crossroads, a place where a global industry finds a warm, public-facing home.
And when the lights dim and the cases close, the city keeps the conversation going — in cafes, on the creek, in late-night taxis where strangers compare wrist stories and swap tips on straps. Time moves on. Here, you can feel it.
Flagship cultural events like Dubai Watch Week ripple through the city’s property market. Expect a lift in hospitality occupancy around creative districts and prime business hubs, increased demand for short-stay units, and a retail pop-up boom that test-drives permanent locations. For investors, the anniversary year is a signal: luxury and design-led traffic concentrates in walkable, experience-rich neighborhoods.
