For Dubai, The Time Is Now

The bustling Middle Eastern city is emerging as an important hub for serious watch collectors around the globe.

- Paige Reddinger

TUCKED AWAY IN a corner of Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), near The Ritz-Carlton, is Perpétuel Gallery, an unassuming 111sqm boutique displaying some of the world’s most important independent watchmaking. During Dubai Watch Week—a biannual event run by the Seddiqi family, the most prominent watch retailers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—the shop, just a few minutes’ walk from the fair in DIFC, held its own exhibition that was filled to the brim with the watchmakers themselves, from Roger W Smith to Simon Brette to Rémi Maillat of Krayon. There, holding court, was Hamdan Bin Humaid Al Hudaidi, a distinguished collector who founded Perpétuel in 2021, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I never thought I would take my passion professionally,” he tells Robb Report. “Everyone was against the idea because they were certain this would fail.” How wrong they were. Instead, Perpétuel has become one of the most significant global players in connecting and brokering deals between collectors and their indie idols. As a serious client himself, Al Hudaidi has unique relationships that allow him to create limited editions exclusive to the gallery—quite a feat when you consider the waiting lists for some of the watchmakers in question are a decade or more long. A recent collaboration of 15 limited-edition Krayon Anywhere watches with desert-orange accents sold out to clients—not just in the Middle East, but also in Australia, the US and South Africa.