Until very recently, I must admit I had only ever stepped foot in Harrods during the month of December. You see, I grew up in London, back when you could spend weeks in London without bumping into another Frenchman, and part of living there as an expat meant that, every year, my family would plan an all-important trip to Harrods in order to buy something quintessentially British – well, mostly tea really – to take to the other side of la Manche/the English Channel during the Christmas holidays. Since my move back to the capital (now the sixth largest French city in the world, according to the BBC), I’ve been going back much more frequently, but never to buy tea. That’s because The Fine Watch Room has a concentration of some of the finest watches made around the globe – minus (and this is a big minus) the independents.
This summer, watches will be taking over the store, which has launched a “Made with Love and Precision” campaign aimed at luring pedestrians walking past the Old Brompton windows into the store to discover some of this year’s most exciting timepieces. Not only that, but Harrods has convinced 23 watchmakers to join the commercial exhibition, and in turn they have each presented an exclusive piece for the store (some are UK exclusives, others are global exclusives). Some even went the extra mile, producing a limited edition for Harrods. Had this exhibition taken place while I was growing up, I suspect I would have found out much earlier what Harrods looks like during the summer.