There is one moment that made this entire shift click for me. I was walking down Old Bond Street on a quiet afternoon, doing what fashion enthusiast does. I wanted to have a quick look. No intention to buy anything, no plan to ask for models that were obviously unavailable, just the small, harmless ritual of stepping into a boutique and feeding the hobby a little. That familiar pleasure has always been part of what made watch collecting feel open and welcoming.
Except the boutique I had in mind did not feel like a boutique anymore. The ground floor looked more like a gallery than a shop. Perfect lighting, spotless displays, a silence that felt slightly too controlled, and a strange emptiness.
The watches that used to sit in the windows were gone. The staff were polite, but in a distant way, almost as if they were waiting for the real visitors to arrive. And the activity I came for, the pieces you hoped to see, the conversations that made the hobby feel alive, were now happening somewhere else. They were happening upstairs. Behind a locked door. Inside a private salon I had only ever seen in curated Instagram posts.
That is when it hit me. The experience has changed. A few years ago you could walk into almost any watch store and be treated like a potential customer, even if you were just browsing. Today it often feels like you need an appointment, a relationship manager, and an unspoken promise that you are not going to waste anyone’s time. The whole atmosphere has shifted from retail to residency. From public space to private lounge. From high street to hidden rooms.
And here is the question that has been bothering me ever since. Is this evolution genuinely aspirational, a sign that watchmaking has entered a more luxurious era. Or is it quietly telling the rest of us that these brands are no longer for people like us.
What Exactly Are These Hidden Lounges
To understand how much the watch world has changed, you first need to understand what these new spaces actually are. They are not boutiques in the old sense of the word. They are not places you wander into on a Saturday afternoon just to browse. They are private lounges, usually tucked above the high street, built for a very specific type of visitor.
Take AP House. Audemars Piguet calls it a loft style apartment for clients, and that description is accurate. Soft sofas, long communal tables, art on the walls, proper coffee, and a bar that would blend in at a private members club.
Almost every AP House sits on an upper floor, comfortably removed from the street. The intention is obvious. You are stepping into a home rather than a shop. Watches are presented over a drink, not across a counter. The emphasis is on hospitality rather than browsing.
Vacheron Constantin takes the idea further with Club 1755 and Suite 1755. These spaces exist in places like Old Bond Street, West Hollywood, and Dubai, and they mix retail with the energy of a private club. Bars, terraces, cigars, curated art, quiet corners, city views. You cannot simply walk into these spaces. You need an appointment or an ongoing relationship with the brand. The location and atmosphere quietly signal who the space is meant for.
A. Lange & Söhne has leaned into the same approach with its salons in Mayfair, Zurich, Geneva, and San Francisco. These first floor lounges either replace or complement the ground floor boutiques. They are quiet, minimal, carefully designed for long conversations rather than quick drop ins.
None of this is accidental. These lounges are hospitality hubs and carefully crafted sales funnels for a brand’s highest value clients. They create privacy, intimacy, and loyalty. I understand the strategy and I even appreciate the design choices. But there is a question that lingers. If the real experience now lives upstairs, what does that mean for everyone left downstairs.
Why Brands are Doing This?
If you look at this shift from the brand’s point of view, the move from ground floor boutiques to private lounges is not surprising at all. In fact, it almost feels inevitable. The first reason is pure practicality. Street level watch stores have become easy targets for smash and grab robberies in major cities.
Large windows, open access, steady foot traffic, and expensive pieces within reach create the perfect recipe for trouble. By moving the important stock upstairs, brands add a natural layer of protection. It cuts down on panic alarms, insurance stress, and the constant worry that something could go wrong.
Then there is the business logic. Studies from McKinsey show that clients in AP House style spaces spend far longer with staff than they do in traditional boutiques. More time means stronger trust.
Stronger trust often leads to larger purchases and deeper loyalty. It is simple retail physics. These lounges are not just beautiful interiors. They are relationship engines. Luxury analysts talk about this all the time. Affluent clients do not want quick service. They want slow, thoughtful hospitality and the sense that they are genuinely known. It feels less like selling and more like hosting.
The pressure from the wider luxury world adds another layer. When Harrods, Selfridges, Browns, and major fashion houses are building townhouse style salons and invite only membership floors, watch brands cannot afford to look outdated. They need the same club like atmosphere to keep up. The modern luxury customer expects that level of experience.
And, to be fair, for the people these spaces are designed for, the upgrade is real. There are no queues and crowded counters. No phones being pressed against display cases. It feels like visiting someone’s home rather than stepping into a shop. Some writers have even compared the experience to joining a private members club.
From a business angle, the strategy is completely logical. It is safer, more controlled, and far more profitable. The real question is not whether it works for them. It is whether it still works for the rest of us.
What It Feels Like Inside?
I will be honest. The first time I stepped into one of these private lounges (thanks to my friend William) I understood the appeal almost immediately. Everything felt calmer than any boutique I had ever visited. As expected, there are no crowds, no background noise, no sense of being rushed along. Nobody hovering behind you with a tray of watches, waiting for you to decide. The whole atmosphere felt slow, controlled, and almost peaceful in a way you never get at street level.
Someone offered me a drink. Someone else recognised my friends name from an earlier visit. The staff spoke to me like a person rather than a purchase. You can sit for as long as you want, chat about references, design, history, or even drift into conversations about regular life.
The experience feels more like visiting a private home than attending a store appointment. In a place like AP House, with its warm lighting and lounge seating, you find yourself slipping into the fantasy. This must be what the inner circle feels like. The world you only ever saw from the outside.
And the truth is, as a watch fan, the magic works. I am not pretending I am immune to it. It feels good to be treated well. It feels good to be invited upstairs. It feels good to feel seen. The hospitality is thoughtful, the environment is beautiful, and the attention is flattering. The fantasy feels incredibly real. The question that remains is who gets to enjoy it and who stays on the other side of the rope.
The Community Mismatch: A Public Hobby in a Private Room
This is the irony I keep circling back to. Watch enthusiasm has never been more public than it is right now. Open Instagram on any day and you will see wrist shots from every corner of the world.
Local meet-ups in coffee shops, collectors swapping pieces over lattes, people sharing the story behind a scratched bezel or a lucky vintage find. YouTube channels break down movements and histories for millions. Discord servers run through the night with people helping each other choose their first watch. Even Reddit is full of emotional essays, proud purchases, disappointing buys, and everything in between.
The culture is loud, democratic, and shared. Anyone can join. Anyone can post. Anyone can fall into the hobby and find a community within minutes. The whole ecosystem works because thousands of strangers talk about the same thing at the same time.
Yet the brand-controlled side of the hobby is moving in the opposite direction. While the public side becomes wider, the official side is drifting into private rooms, buzzers, appointments, and layers of relationship managers. It creates a strange disconnect. Online, the hobby feels open and welcoming. In person, it can feel restricted and coded.
A lot of publications pointed out that new waves of collectors, including many women, have expanded the hobby through storytelling, social meet-ups, and a sense of shared discovery. The real energy comes from people connecting with each other, not from brands deciding who gets access. That is the heart of watch culture.
And this is where the tension sits. When brands move the centre of gravity into private lounges, they risk drifting away from the very community that keeps the category alive. Close the door too much and the enthusiasm simply goes somewhere else, usually to independents and secondary dealers who still understand what it means to make someone feel welcome. The hobby is public. The joy is collective. You cannot hide that energy upstairs forever.
Is This Aspirational or Alienating?
Here is where I feel the most confused, and somehow the most certain. Two truths sit side by side. The first truth is that private lounges make complete sense for the brands. They are safer, calmer, and far more efficient. They give staff real time with high value clients, and for the people who are invited inside, the experience is genuinely beautiful. I cannot pretend otherwise. I have felt it myself. It works exactly the way it is designed to work.
The second truth is that the long term health of watch culture depends on something you will never see on a quarterly report. It depends on people feeling welcome in the world of watches. It depends on the kid pressing their face against a window. It depends on the person who walks into a boutique to try on something they cannot buy yet.
It depends on the beginner who falls in love with the hobby because someone behind the counter treated them like a future collector instead of an inconvenience. If the world of watches becomes too gated, it slowly suffocates.
Some luxury strategy pieces celebrate the private lounge trend with a strange sense of pride. They talk about exclusivity as if it is the highest form of luxury and suggest that this is simply how things should be now. I agree with the part that values hospitality and deeper relationships. I disagree with the part that seems to forget the rest of the community. Because the rest of the community is the foundation. It always has been.
When I think back to how I fell in love with watches, it was never about access. It was about imagination. Anyone could stand outside a window and feel that spark. Anyone could walk into a boutique and catch a glimpse of a world they hoped to enter one day. That small spark creates a future buyer. That spark creates a lifelong enthusiast.
The version of luxury I hope watchmaking grows toward is simple. It is human. It is warm to first time buyers. It makes room for people who collect slowly. It respects enthusiasm just as much as spending power. The top one percent may account for the biggest sales, but the rest of us are the reason the culture exists at all.
What It Would Look Like If Watch Brands Welcomed Everyone
So how do we fix this without pretending the entire luxury system is going to become democratic overnight. I do not think the answer is to shut down the lounges. They serve a purpose and they genuinely improve the experience for the people they are designed for. The solution does not need to be dramatic. It just needs to be balanced.
A healthier model keeps the upstairs lounges but also protects at least a few ground floor spaces that feel open and welcoming. A place where anyone can walk in, ask questions, try something on, and leave feeling a little more connected to the hobby.
The private rooms can still exist for the high spenders. That is completely fine. But downstairs should not feel like an empty waiting area with nothing to offer.
Brands could also use their clubhouses in a more thoughtful way. One evening a month dedicated to community events. A relaxed session for first time buyers. A short talk on design, history, or basic maintenance. Anything that makes the wider enthusiast community feel seen rather than screened out. Staff could be trained to treat enthusiasts as future collectors instead of background noise.
Which brings me back to the question that started this whole article. Are watch brands still for us. At this moment, structurally, they are mostly for their best clients. But the broader culture still depends on the enthusiasm of everyone else. The posts, the stories, the meet-ups, the excitement that keeps the hobby alive. Brands cannot afford to ignore that for long.
If they truly believe we are part of their story, they need to stop hiding the good parts upstairs.