ICYMI: HF.10 — The best of Day 1

After weeks of hype. HF.10 has finally landed in Hong Kong, with the Dubai Watch Week team taking over the iconic Henderson building, and unleashing the unique DWW-brand of cultural and intellectual watch chat onto a rapt Hong Kong audience. Over the next three days we're going to provide some rapid-fire highlights of HF.10.

A room full of media, collectors and industry insiders gathered at the Henderson to be formally welcomed by Hind Seddiqi, CEO of Dubai Watch Week, who had some exciting news about the future of the fair to share — a new home and a dramatic expansion for Dubai Watch Week in 2025. Next year, the show will take place at Dubai Mall, Burj Park, and will almost double in size to 200,000 square feet.

No sooner had Ms Seddiqi left the stage than it was time for the first panel to kick off, "Perpetual Puzzles: Is the Age of Mechanical Innovation Over" saw freelance journalist Robin Swithinbank lead a discussion between Pim Koeslang from Christiaan van der Klaauw, Nicholas Biebuyck from TAG Heuer and SJX's Jiaxian Su digging into weighty topics around 'peak mechanisation', and just what the next 10 years look like with Jiaxian predicting that; "In terms of complications it will be endless, the market will be on the way up again, and that's when we will be seeing the craziest things you can imagine, with crazy price tags."

That possible reality is a long way in the future, and may never happen. What is much more certain is the excitement of HF.10 masterclasses. A handful of people who registered early go to try their hand at some actual watchmaking, at Wristcheck's masterclass on painting luminous material on lume. Over one hour, a group of novice watch techs managed to strip and then reapply the lume on a set of hands. For many, it was a humbling, frustrating, but ultimately satisfying experience, thanks in no small part to the guidance of Wristcheck's watchmaker, Peter Elliot Glomb.

Wristcheck also provided a curated capsule collection which tells the story of Chinese watchmaking, including a wonderful range of special releases from Chinese calendar complications, through to a charming Gerald Genta watch featuring Mickey Mouse, made to celebrate Hong Kong Disneyland.

As you might expect given the location, Asian watchmaking was a hot topic on the stage too — as noted collector and expert Carson Chan moderated a discussion with Jill Chen from Christie's, Atelier Wen co-founder Robin Tallendier and Johnathan Chan, co-founder of The Horology Club. It's uncommon for Asian watchmaking excellence to get some time in the son, which not only celebrated up-and-coming stars like Japanese maker Norifumi Seko, but also under-appreciated pioneers in the space like Chinese independent watchmaker Kiu Tai Yu.

Of course, the team behind Dubai Watch Week love a good surprise, and they certainly delivered at HF.10, as Hind Seddiqi and Revolution founder Wei Koh took to the stage to announce the Dubai Watch Week x Grail Watch Design Competition. This exciting multi-year initiative allowed anyone — from industry veterans to complete newcomers — to submit a watch design, which will be actually produced and (hopefully) presented at Dubai Watch Week 2025. You can find out more about the competition here, but we got a glimpse of what the process will look like thanks to a pilot project based on a design by Alterum Watch Co.

Alterum founder Justin Walters and Jerome Biard, CEO of white label manufacture Rowenta-Henex took to the stage to run through a test case. If Alterum's impressive world-timer is any indication, a high bar has already been set, and we can't wait to see what comes next.

With this exciting announcement, the formalities of day one were over, with only an opening night cocktail party left, and perhaps the less said about that the better.