How Industry Fairs Evolved into Places to Meet Horology’s Most Famous Makers

September 29, 2026 / Sophie Clearwater /

A moment from the Watch Week Aspen closing party. Photo: R Bock

For decades, the most important watch fairs in the world weren’t really intended for the people who actually wore the watches. They were industry affairs where brands unveiled their newest creations to retailers and press, orders were written and consumers largely watched from the sidelines. But that began changing well before the pandemic, and today, collector-focused watch shows are proliferating across the United States and around the world, reflecting a fundamental shift in watch culture. Collectors don’t just want to read about a watch or see it on Instagram. They want to put it on their wrist, talk to the person who made it and, increasingly, spend time with the community that has grown up around mechanical watches.

That culture was particularly evident in August at the third annual Watch Week Aspen, where the show wasn’t confined to a convention center. Instead, much of downtown Aspen became the exhibition, and competing brands opened their doors to showcase timepieces in a relaxed way, with 19 makers and retailers participating in more than 40 presentations, panels and events as collectors roamed from boutique to boutique, meeting senior executives, creative directors and independent watchmakers. More than 300 people attended, including some who traveled from both coasts specifically for the event.

Elizabeth Smith Hrubala, founder of Watch Week Aspen, told Observer that “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.”

A crowded luxury watch boutique in Aspen, with guests gathered around glass display cases during a watch event. — Watch Week Aspen activated the mountain city’s downtown, with 19 makers and retailers participating in more than 40 presentations, panels and events across boutiques and other spaces. Photo: R Bock

New York City has enjoyed collector shows for a while, but even those are evolving. Next month, WatchTime New York returns to Gotham Hall for its 11th edition with a record 48 participating brands, all top tier. This year’s roster stretches from major maisons including Chopard, Piaget, Blancpain and Zenith to some of watchmaking’s most coveted names like MB&F, Laurent Ferrier, Voutilainen, Czapek, Armin Strom and Ressence. What’s more, the show has become the headliner of what has organically evolved into New York Watch Week, with brands, retailers and other organizers timing events around a weekend when thousands of collectors descend on Manhattan.

The roots of the phenomenon go back a decade. When WatchTime New York debuted in 2015 with just 18 brands, the idea of a major luxury watch event built expressly for collectors was still novel in America. Instead of meeting principally with retailers behind closed doors, brands put watches directly into the hands of enthusiasts and brought along executives and watchmakers from Switzerland, Germany and elsewhere to talk about them. Last year’s 10th-anniversary edition attracted more than 2,700 visitors there to inspect the offerings of 44 brands.

While WatchTime focuses largely on the upper echelon of luxury watchmaking, another very different collector show was born in New York that same year. The Windup Watch Fair started as a single weekend where enthusiasts could meet brands they followed online. The show was free and included more attainably priced brands that spread their watches out on tables, inviting visitors to pick them up and try them on. Today Windup operates fairs in New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Dallas, all still free to attend.

The New York show, which runs concurrently with WatchTime October 16-18, brings a multitude of microbrands and enthusiast-driven companies such as Accutron, Bulova, Bremont, Fossil and G-Shock together under one roof. It is a markedly different proposition from WatchTime’s luxury focus, but one built around exactly the same desire: put the watch on the wrist.

TAG Heuer At America's Luxury Watch Show - WATCHTIME — A birdseye view of a past edition of WatchTime New York. Photo by Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for TAG Heuer

That range may help explain why American collector shows have become so successful. Someone can spend a weekend examining watches costing hundreds of dollars as well as extraordinary independent complications priced well into six figures. The common denominator isn’t price. It’s passion.

How watch culture is evolving

The pandemic years coincided with a surge of interest in watch collecting, while digital platforms gave a growing audience unprecedented access to watch information and images. Yet a photograph can’t convey how a 38mm case sits on a wrist, how a guilloché dial reacts to light or whether a bracelet simply feels right. The more information collectors consumed online, the more reason they had to seek out the watches—and one another—in person.

The United States is fertile territory for that shift. In 2025, it accounted for 17 percent of all Swiss watch exports by value, making it Switzerland’s largest individual export market, according to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry.

As collectors change their habits, the collector-show concept continues to evolve. In February 2027, an event called The Escapement is slated to debut in Las Vegas at T-Mobile Arena and Sphere. Founded by collectors and watch-industry figures, it has already signed Greubel Forsey, Romain Gauthier, Biver, Ming, Armin Strom and Czapek, among others, and plans to combine watches with hands-on workshops, masterclasses, awards, music and entertainment.

Its scale may be new, but the premise isn’t. A generation of consumers that learned about watches online increasingly wants something the screen can’t deliver: access, interactive experiences and community.