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Thu, Jan 22, 2026 | Shaban 3, 1447 | Fajr 05:45 | DXB 
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Dubai Watch Week 2025: The 4 most influential watches that defined the show
DWW 2025 cemented its status as a global cultural platform, featuring collaborations and unique pieces that blended Swiss mechanics with regional artistry
Now in its seventh edition, Dubai Watch Week has evolved into far more than a regional showcase — it is one of the industry’s most influential cultural platforms, where ideas, art, heritage, and technical bravado converge. This year, the energy felt particularly focused, with many brands arriving with stories shaped for this region and its collectors. Here are four standouts that shaped conversations and drew the spotlight.
1) Bvlgari Octo Finissimo Mattar Bin Lahej Edition
Bvlgari’s Octo Finissimo has long been the watch world’s most compelling paradox — ultrathin yet architectural, minimalist yet expressive. For DWW 2025, the maison elevates its decade-long legacy with a collaboration deeply rooted in the UAE’s artistic identity. Emirati artist Mattar Bin Lahej lends his fluid, unmistakable calligraphy to the sandblasted titanium case, bracelet and dial, transforming the watch into a sculptural manifesto. Powered by the BVL 138 micro-rotor calibre and limited to just 70 pieces, this edition feels less like a variant and more like a convergence of artistic languages. It is, in the purest sense, a contemporary object of meaning — engineered in Switzerland, envisioned in Rome, and grounded in Dubai.
2) Roger Dubuis Hommage “Sukoon Al-Layl”
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In a fair that celebrates audacity, Roger Dubuis offered something softer and more introspective. Unveiled as the concluding chapter of the La Placide series, “Sukoon Al-Layl” — a unique piece — honours both the founder’s calm spirit and the serenity of the desert night. The 38 mm platinum case sets the stage for a deeply expressive dial: mother-of-pearl layers, guilloché waves echoing wind-shaped dunes, an aventurine moonphase, and Arabic numerals anchoring it to the region.
3) Hublot Big Bang Seddiqi 75th Anniversary Editions
Few partnerships feel as organically embedded in the Gulf’s watch landscape as Hublot and Ahmed Seddiqi. To mark the retailer’s 75th anniversary — and the 20th year of the Big Bang — the duo unveiled two exclusive creations: the Big Bang All Black and the Big Bang Titanium Grey. Both feature Arabic numerals, a subtle yet resonant nod to regional collectors who have shaped the model’s success. These editions aren’t simply commemorative; they distil two legacies that have grown in parallel, speaking directly to a community that values bold design and modern craft.
4) Girard-Perregaux Laureato Three Gold Bridges
Amid these regionally rooted narratives, there was also space for pure watchmaking that needs no geographical anchor. Girard-Perregaux filled that space beautifully with the new Laureato Three Gold Bridges. A meeting of two icons rarely feels this seamless. Limited to 50 pieces, this new watch fuses the architectural purity of the Laureato with the maison’s most enduring design signature: the arrow-shaped bridges first drawn in 1867. Now reinterpreted in white gold and suspended across the openworked dial, they anchor the new automatic GP9620 calibre, whose barrel, gear train and tourbillon align along a single axis.
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