Rolex’s upcoming London flagship has been delayed for a second time. It likely won’t be ready to open its doors to the general public any time before 2025, as reported by Watchpro. The three-floor Rolex showroom that will be owned and operated by Watches of Switzerland Group was originally expected to open last year. Spanning three floors and 7,200 square feet of space, the upcoming Rolex flagship is located on Bond Street at a historic corner property previously used by Gucci. The Rolex megastore is primely situated on the UK’s most prestigious shopping thoroughfare, right next to other stores of other prestigious Swiss watch brands like Laeger LeCoultre, Vacheron Constantin, and A. Lange & Söhne.
The Watches of Switzerland Group had announced its plans to open the boutique back in 2022. Designed by Rolex and Watches of Switzerland, the store space will focus on client hospitality and the crown’s storied history. Reportedly, Gucci took longer than expected to move out of this location to a larger building on New Bond Street to the north, which delayed the start of work for the flagship. Furthermore, Watches of Switzerland’s chief executive Brian Duffy also blamed the delays on issues relating to the basement of the Old Bond Street building. In anticipation of the upcoming megastore, all stores selling Rolex on Bond Street have been shut down, except for WoSG‘s tiny 900 sq. ft boutique. German retail group Wempe shuttered its Bond Street store last year soon after losing its Rolex agency. At the same time, Mappin & Webb, located on the corner of Old Bond Street and Piccadilly, is being converted into a Tudor retail outlet.
Watches of Switzerland is a century-old British retailer of Swiss watches with 16 stores in the United Kingdom. The group opened its first Rolex boutique in the mid-1980s and currently operates seven Rolex-branded stores across the UK and US. Shares of the company plummeted 33% last week after the luxury watch retailer cut its guidance for the 2024 fiscal year. “Despite a positive start to the early part of Q3 FY24, WOSG then experienced a volatile trading performance in the run-up to and beyond Christmas, as the challenging macro-economic conditions impacted consumer spending in the luxury retail sector,” the company said. The delay in the opening of the Rolex flagship is only going to make things more challenging for the retailer.
