This week, we take a look at Watches & Wonders, the luxury watch trade show that kicked off on Tuesday, and what the announcements from Rolex signal about the rest of the watch industry. Read on for a Q&A with L’Agence fashion director Tara Rudes Dunn, as well.
April Fool’s Day may be here, but at Watches & Wonders in Geneva, Switzerland, chronography is no joke.
The annual trade show is the most important week of the year for the Swiss luxury watch industry. All of the biggest brands in the game, like Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet and Vacheron Constantin, gather in Geneva to show off their new releases for the year, while dealers and high-end collectors plan how their collections will grow. Like any good trade show, Watches & Wonders is a preview of what products will shape the industry in the year to come.
While the event kicked off on Tuesday and will run until April 7, one of the biggest announcements is already here: Rolex debuted its first new watch line in 13 years. The last fully new watch line from the Swiss giant was the Sea-Dweller, released in 2012. Now, it’s joined by the Land-Dweller, a watch that brings in some entirely new-to-Rolex features like an integrated bracelet combined with some classic brand stylings like a fluted bezel.
On Monday, Glossy spoke with Doug Kaplan, chief commercial officer of Bob’s Watches, one of the largest watch marketplaces in the world, about what he expected to see at Watches & Wonders. Rolex embracing an integrated bracelet was one of his predictions. An integrated bracelet means that the band of the watch is connected seamlessly with the face, without the possibility to remove and change out the bracelet. It’s a feature that Rolex’s competitors have embraced, with Audemars Piguet’s flagship Royal Oak and Patek Philippe’s Nautilus lines both frequently being sold with integrated bracelets. But Rolex has no problem being late to a trend, Kaplan said.
“Rolex doesn’t need to be first or last to the party,” Kaplan said. “When they show up, they are the party.”
In other words, when Rolex does something, it’s a confirmation of where the industry is heading. That’s partially because Rolex represents such a large portion of the luxury watch market itself. While the numbers are fuzzy and Rolex is sometimes cagey about its volumes, Kaplan estimated that Rolex, along with a few other brands like Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe and Cartier, make up around 70% of the entire luxury watch market by value.
The luxury watch industry has recently been in a strange place. Prices for new watches keep going up while secondhand prices plummet. The overall Swiss watch export business saw a continued downturn throughout 2024 that has remained in the first few months of 2025. Exports fell 8.2% in February, equating to over 100,000 fewer watches exported than the year before. That was driven by the continued slowdown of demand in China.
But one sector of the watch world has done better, in terms of exports. In the most recent data available, from March, only watches priced under $228 saw an increase in volume. Needless to say, most of the watches shown off at Watches & Wonders cost a fair bit more than that. Rolex shows no signs of gesturing toward the consumers of lower-priced watches. The brand also announced this week a new yellow gold 1908 Settimo watch, despite the fact that gold prices are surging 27% year-over-year. Rolex’s gold watch prices have risen 14% in 2025, and the 1908 Settimo costs close to $40,000.
Those prices are clearly appealing to a wealthy, established watch collector. But Kaplan told Glossy he thinks the biggest challenge watch brands face today is in customer acquisition. Collectors who got their first watch decades ago will likely reliably stay in the market, but brands need to find ways to excite a new audience and meet them on their preferred platforms.
“How do you keep people happy? That’s the big question,” Kaplan said. “Rolex has had to try and sell jewelry to keep customers coming back, especially when the volume of product is low.”
One way watch brands can attract new customers is through sponsorship deals with sports leagues. Rolex teased the Land-Dweller release with an image of tennis legend Roger Federer wearing it, for example. But no sport is more closely associated with watches than motorsport. Rolex sponsored Formula 1 for years until its role was usurped by LVMH, which signed a new $1 billion deal in October for its watch brand Tag Heuer to be the official watch sponsor.
But at Watches & Wonders, Rolex signaled it wouldn’t be forgetting about motorsport with several new releases of its Daytona line.
“Rolex is no longer the official timekeeper of F1, but they’re anchored to racing. And we predict that will continue to be a strong part of the brand,” Kaplan said.
5 questions with L’Agence’s Tara Rudes Dann
On March 27, the Los Angeles fashion brand L’Agence opened its newest store in Manhattan. The 4,400-square-foot space is a showcase for the many new categories L’Agence has launched in the last year, including sleepwear, swimwear and belts. In addition to the new flagship, L’Agence has eight stores around the globe and is carried in more than 300 wholesale doors. Glossy spoke with the brand’s fashion director, Tara Rudes Dann, at a party celebrating the launch where celebrities and influencers like Martha Stewart and Danielle Bernstein toasted the new store.
You’ve opened four new stores in the last few months before this flagship — two in the U.S., one in Paris and one in Seoul. How do you plan where to open stores?
“L’Agence is a family business. My uncle Jeff [Rudes, chairman] and Johnny [Saven], our CEO, handle the business aspect of where we open stores. They find the flagship areas that our customer gravitates toward — places like New York, California, Paris and Houston. This year, we’re opening in Florida and two more in Seoul. It’s a step-by-step process, but it’s about finding areas where women are fashionable and are a fit for the brand.”
Do you go where you already have an existing customer, either from online or wholesale sales? Or does the store help create the customer?
“Seoul, for example, is already happening for us. But it’s a perfect place to put the brand because the women there are so stylish. You walk around and just see the most fashionable people walking around. It’s very eclectic. And if we’re a brand about femininity and style, why not bring that to a city like Seoul?”
You’ve launched a lot of new categories like footwear and swim. Are there any other categories you’re toying with? And how do you approach launching a new category?
“It’s step by step, trying to create our woman from head to toe. So we did shoes first, then swim, then belts. The belts are great because they complete the jeans and shoes look. We are doing a collab focused on hats this summer. Intimates is a conversation that’s on the table, but there are no concrete plans there yet. And, of course, beauty. Beauty is the end all be all. In terms of when to launch them, I think it comes down to knowing your customer really well and what they’ll respond to. I used to say, ‘I want to know our customer like I’m her best friend.’ Now I say, ‘I want to be married to her.'”
So how do you get to know your customer?
“My background is in sales. I worked in sales at J Brand, and selling is all about building a community. So for me, it’s about conversing with the customer directly. I’m in one of our stores at least three days a week, no matter which city I’m in. I have relationships with the customers, and I talk to them. But it’s not just the customers. I talk to our associates, the stylists, the people stocking in the back. They all have valuable insight about the customer.”
Other news to know
- President Trump is considering final proposals on the sale of TikTok this week, according to reports, ahead of the deadline of April 5. Big companies like Blackstone and Oracle, along with a host of private equity companies, will most likely be involved with the final deal.
- In other political news, more Trump tariffs are set to go into effect on Wednesday. But with characteristic haziness, the details of the administration’s plans for what it’s calling “Liberation Day” are unclear. The European Union is likely to be affected — Trump had previously floated the idea of a 25% tax on European goods — which would have a major impact on luxury fashion brands.
- PVH’s shares surged by 18% on Tuesday after it reported strong profitability and a plan to relaunch Calvin Klein sportswear in the U.S.
