In a luxury market that has spent two years explaining its own caution, the watch counter has been doing something quieter. It has been selling.
Hard luxury behaves differently from soft luxury in a downturn. A coat is discretionary in a way a chronograph is not. The watch carries resale value, a service history, and a serial number. It is an object that can be argued about as an asset.
That argument has limits, and the industry has been testing them. Secondary market prices for the most speculated references have come down from their 2022 extremes. The froth thinned without taking the category with it.
For now the counter holds. In a market that keeps waiting for a correction to arrive, that is the story.
The American recovery is specific. The United States has a deep base of first-time buyers, a strong currency for much of the period, and a retail estate that has been rebuilt around appointment selling and private rooms.
The British and European picture is less buoyant, which is why the retailer’s optimism is a statement about geography as much as about desire.
