News of the watch industry’s decline has been greatly exaggerated. I decided to talk about this issue because of what I started to suspect the proliferation of such news was doing to the health of the watch industry that I work within the orbit of. The last decade or so has been an absolute whirlwind for the global luxury timepiece industry. The storm isn’t nearly over. Even if history and statist...
The strongest version of this narrative highlights a critical disconnect between media-driven perceptions of the luxury watch industry and its actual resilience. The industry is not in decline; rather, it is exiting an artificial bubble in the pre-owned market, which media outlets have misrepresented as a broader crisis. The author rightly points out that used watches depreciating below retail is a normal market function, not a sign of failure. The industry's "stickiness"—where professionals pre...