This story is from an installment of In the Loupe , our weekly insider newsletter about the best of the watch world. Sign up here.

It was the watch event to end all watch events. For five days last week, thousands of watch lovers—buyers and sellers, makers and media, chief executives and celebrities—converged on an urban park in the shadow of the Burj Khalifa in downtown Dubai to celebrate the seventh edition of ; the 75 th anniversary of its host, ; and the conviction that, even amid , currency swings, soaring material costs, and other economic headwinds, the luxury watch business is alive and well.

“I’m very confident about the watch industry,” Georges Kern, the CEO of Breitling, said during a in which he and his fellow chief executives acknowledged that the current crisis has

See Full Page