Announcing the Dubai Watch Week x Grail Watch Design Competition

Have you ever wanted to design your own watch? Well, now you can. This exciting premise is at the heart of the Dubai Watch Week x Grail Watch Design Competition, just announced by Hind Seddiqi, CEO of Dubai Watch Week and Wei Koh, founder of Revolution at HF.10 in Hong Kong.

So, what is the Dubai Watch Week x Grail Watch Design Competition, and how do you get involved?

Hind Seddiqi and Wei Koh explain that the competition is a five-year initiative designed to discover and foster the next generation of watch design talent, provide mentorship and institutional support and, most excitingly of all, create an actual watch, which will be announced at Dubai Watch Week 2025.While some information will be kept under wraps for now (i.e., the speakers for Horology Forum, as well as which of the masters will be teaching classes, and which entertainment and food concepts), it’s fair for us here at Dubai Watch Week to at least let you in on some of the fun, right? To leak a little information to the public. Because let’s face it, November 24th is not that far away, and it’s our duty to build some excitement. We’d be honored to have you join us at the open-to-all 5-day event, so, consider this to be sort of the trailer to the impending blockbuster movie.

But it's not a complete blank slate. For each year, the competition will have a theme — for 2025 that theme is 'Shaped Watches.' Design submissions are open as of right now, and will remain open until the 31st of December, giving you a few months to hone your concept, and each design entry will be accompanied by a one-minute video explaining the concept and introducing the design.

The competition is open to anyone — you could be an industry veteran looking to branch out on your own, or you might have never designed anything before, it all comes down to the strength of your design.

After this initial submission period, finalists will be selected to submit their pitches in person at Seddiqi Holding HQ, to be judged by a panel of judges, including Hind Seddiqi, Mohammed Abdulmagied Seddiqi and Wei Koh, in addition to a group of four external judges, including Jean Claude Biver, Sylvain Berneron, Ming Liu, Jerome Biard, and Carole Kasapi Forestier. At this pitch, the contestant will not only explain their design but present a business plan and a product plan for the next five to 10 years; on top of that, they will need to articulate their brand identity or story. It sounds like a lot, but the rewards are great.

The winning design will be supported by an established industry ecosystem, which will support the winner through prototyping and production, thanks to partnerships with Swiss white-label manufacturers, media and marketing support.

This innovative competition seeks to find exciting new watch designers and offer them a path to see their designs become reality and to build their own watch brand.

Finalists will be shortlisted in March 2025, and the winner announced at Dubai Watch Week in November next year.

Updates on submission will be announced in due course.