Nick Lukas of Exquisite Timepieces and Swatch's Experience-First Strategy

The AP x Swatch collaboration is a good example of how the boundaries of luxury have changed. The significance isn't simply that a luxury watchmaker collaborated with a mass-market brand. It's that the collaboration allowed people who might never have considered themselves part of the traditional luxury-watch world to participate in the conversation.

That's an important distinction. Luxury used to be largely about exclusivity: who could access something, how scarce it was, and what owning it communicated about you. Today, luxury is increasingly about the experience surrounding the product: the story, the design, the community, the anticipation, and the feeling of being part of something culturally relevant.

That's why high-low collaborations continue to attract so much attention. They create a sense of discovery and make luxury feel culturally accessible without necessarily making the underlying luxury brand itself less exclusive. A collaboration can introduce millions of people to a design language, a brand, or an entire category that they might otherwise never encounter.

The AP x Swatch phenomenon also demonstrates something important about today's consumer: people don't necessarily want to be told what luxury is supposed to look like. They are willing to engage with luxury on their own terms. Someone can appreciate a $200 watch and a $200,000 watch for completely different reasons, and those interests aren't necessarily contradictory.

I think that's part of a much broader shift we're seeing in the watch industry. Consumers are becoming less interested in buying something simply because it signals that they've reached a certain level of wealth or status. They're increasingly interested in what the watch says about their personality, their interests, and their experiences.

That doesn't mean status has disappeared. Of course it hasn't. Brand recognition and prestige remain powerful. But they're no longer the entire story.

For collectors, the experience surrounding a watch can be just as important as the watch itself. Discovering a particular independent watchmaker, meeting the people behind a brand, learning about a movement, attending a launch, finding a rare piece, or sharing the discovery with a community can become part of the value.

This is also why the most successful luxury brands today are selling much more than products. They're selling a world.

The watch itself may be the physical object, but the customer is also buying the story behind it, the craftsmanship, the heritage, the sense of discovery, and ultimately the feeling associated with owning and wearing it. Luxury brands that understand that are able to create relationships with consumers rather than simply transactions.

For retailers, this shift creates a responsibility as well. If a customer can find specifications, photographs, pricing, reviews, and videos online in seconds, simply having the product isn't enough anymore. The retailer has to add something to the experience.

That's something we've thought about deeply at Exquisite Timepieces.

When a customer visits our Naples store, we want the experience to feel very different from simply walking into a place and asking for a watch. We want people to be able to explore, ask questions, handle watches, learn about different brands and movements, and have a genuine conversation with someone who understands the product and the culture surrounding it.

We also try to give our customers experiences they can't necessarily get by shopping for a watch anywhere else. One way we do that is through limited-edition collaborations and exclusive launches with watch brands (latest collab: https://trilobe.com/en/actualites/trilobe-x-exquisite-timepieces-3/). These projects allow us to work closely with brands to create or introduce watches specifically for our customer community, often in very limited quantities. There's something particularly rewarding about being able to offer a collector a piece that was created with their community in mind and that they won't see everywhere else.

Those launches also become events in themselves. They give collectors a reason to engage with a brand, learn about the story behind a particular watch, meet other enthusiasts, and feel like they're part of something happening within the watch community. In that sense, the limited edition isn't just a product; it's an experience and a memory attached to the product.

We've also invested heavily in an online experience that gives customers the same sense of confidence and attention they would expect in person. Someone purchasing a luxury watch online should still feel that they're dealing with experts rather than simply clicking "buy."

For us, the goal is to make the customer feel comfortable whether they're buying their first serious mechanical watch or adding an important piece to an established collection. That means education, transparency, responsive service, and making the process enjoyable rather than intimidating.

I think that's ultimately where luxury retail is heading. The product still matters enormously: the craftsmanship, finishing, movement, history, and design are fundamental. But the product is increasingly the beginning of the relationship rather than the end of it.

The strongest luxury businesses will be the ones that can make customers feel something before, during, and long after the purchase. That's what turns a watch from an expensive object into an experience and, eventually, into something that becomes part of someone's story.

Elevated Men's Lifestyle Magazine