At Watches of Switzerland, Your Rolex Comes with a Martini
Unless you have a Scrooge McDuck-style pool of gold coins socked away, buying a watch—a proper savings-account-draining-level watch—is a sweaty experience. Just the prospect of plunking down thousands of dollars, the price of entry for a brand-new Rolex, makes sweat bead up on my forehead. And because of the way watches are so often marketed—Patek Philippe's famous line is “You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation”—this isn’t just an object that’s strapped around your wrist, but that of your descendants for generations to come. Worse: unless you’re a one-percenter, you probably get one shot at this purchase.
Need a drink yet?
This is at least partially the idea behind Watches of Switzerland, a retailer that opened last November in Soho. (There’s one in the Wynn casino in Las Vegas and another opening at New York’s mall of the future, Hudson Yards.) “[Watch retailers] can be incredibly intimidating,” says David Hurley, who oversees retail as the company’s executive VP. “That's always the concern for stores like this.”
Hurley and Watches of Switzerland are in the business of being intimidating, selling some of the most expensive timepieces in the world: they tout in-store boutiques from Rolex, Cartier, and Patek Phillippe and an unparalleled mix from these sorts of brands as strengths. But WoS wants things to feel less intense. So Watches of Switzerland built a secret weapon in the store’s lower level: a full bar from Death & Company, the institution famous for kicking off New York’s cocktail craze. It might seem over the top, but it's only the latest in a series of retailers upping the ante.
Over the past few years, as shops have battled (often to the death) for customers’ attention, attempts to attract customers have grown increasingly over the top. A coffee shop inside every store turned into the in-house java brand. The store visit begat the roving vans to deliver clothes to the customer, wherever they may be.
Historically, though, men’s retailers' favorite in-store experience tweak is alcohol. Plenty of stores set up bar carts where employees can mix simple cocktails; J.Crew’s famed Liquor Store went so far as to sell gingham shirts and slim suits out of a former bar. But what works for selling modestly priced button-up shirts doesn’t exactly do the trick for multi-thousand-dollar watches. Customer service in the watch industry is often supercharged: Audemars Piguet offered its best customers an exclusive John Mayer performance last year. Seen through that lens, Watches of Switzerland putting a destination bar in its basement doesn’t seem so out there.
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When I meet Hurley at Watches of Switzerland on a Thursday afternoon, the magic of the bar is on full display. A pair of men sit on the green bar stools, tapping away at open rose-gold Macbooks; Hurley guesses they’re customers. The bar is stocked with all the trinkets expected of a Death & Co bar, too: gold metal straws poke out from behind the black marble counter, shelves are filled with enough alcohol for probably an entire Hemingway novel, sturdy glasses sit on coasters with a WoS logo on side and a D&Co emblem on the other.
As I pull up to the bar, the bartender describes the day’s special: the Vesper, a combination of vodka, gin, and the fruity French wine Lillet invented in the 1953 James Bond novel Casino Royale.
Most of the drinks at WoS share the Vesper’s high-test ingredients list—they are cocktails that make supremely difficult decisions feel a lot less daunting. On the menu: the rye whiskey, cognac, and Grand Marnier “Cool Hand Luke,” named after the Paul Newman film—and the actor whose former wristwatch currently holds the record for most expensive ever sold. There’s also a spin on the Manhattan listed as the “Haute Horlogerie.” I order the whiskey-honey-lemon-juice Revenue Act named after…the wealth tax.
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“We want people to come in and spend a significant period of time here,” Hurley says while we’re tucked into a corner surrounded by shelves of watch books about Tudor, Patek, and timepieces owned by celebrities. “These are major purchases for people, and you can get a little blase if you're in the business, but it's an awful lot of money for someone to spend. They’ve got many choices today in terms of how they spend that money, and you want to make sure people get a wonderful experience.”
Hurley acknowledges that a sale can slip right through his fingers once a customer leaves the store and can search their phone without worrying about a scornful gaze from an employee. Once there, the web is full of potential WoS competitors for customers to shop from. The transplanted Death & Co is a way to keep people around—or, better yet, a reason for them to come back. The bar also makes Watches of Switzerland an event space where the retailer can host parties for VIP customers, or previews for brands rolling out new product.
The bar is just one element of Watches of Switzerland’s plan for U.S. watch retail domination. The British-based brand spotted an opportunity in America’s currently piping-hot watch market. “Luxury accessories sales in the U.S. is seven times the size of the U.K. business, luxury jewelry is six times the size of the U.K. business, and luxury watches is one-and-a-half times the size of the U.K. business,” Hurley, a London transplant, explains. “I'm not saying we're going to turn it into seven times but I do think there is a great opportunity.”
Hurley sees customers all around him, too. He mentions some of the store’s SoHo neighbors that might attract future WoS shoppers: the Eden fine art gallery, Louis Vuitton, even A Bathing Ape. Hurley imagines a world where a Bape customer comes in for a drink, and leaves without a watch. And then, once they’re ready to jump from camo hoodies to luxury timepieces, they come back to WoS. “We really look at watches as a rational luxury,” Hurley says. A high-end watch, he notes, “doesn't lose its value over time.” Streetwear might not do the same.
While I’m sitting downstairs with Hurley, an enthusiastic salesman comes over with a platter of five watches meant as evidence of Watches of Switzerland’s special catalog. The first one we inspect is a Hublot Big Bang made out of synthetic sapphire—a completely translucent watch with a cloudy strap and a skeletonized dial that reveals moving parts. There are only 99 of these in the world. I put on number 16 and it’s light—deceptively so. The Revenue Act I ordered a few minutes earlier arrives, and not a second too soon. After we thank the bartender, I’m told the price of the watch: $148,000. A cocktail won't make that amount of money suddenly appear in my bank account. But just for a second, buying a watch the price of a house seems a little less terrifying.
