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Watch Week Aspen's programme is out, with a Glashutte Original debut in one shop on Thursday
Watch Week Aspen runs 13 to 16 August, and the programme has a Glashütte Original launch that exists for two hours in one shop on Thursday.
Hen & Mills Editorial · 2 min read · 12 August 2026
Glashütte Original is showing a new watch on Thursday afternoon, and the only place to see it is the first floor of a jeweller in Aspen. Four to six in the evening, Oliver Smith Jeweler, 400 East Hyman Avenue. The brand's listing calls it a cocktail evening built around its latest bit of watchmaking, exclusive to Watch Week Aspen.
That sits inside Watch Week Aspen, which runs 13 to 16 August and is now in its third year. The full programme has just landed. I read the whole thing knowing I have no chance of getting to a single item on it, and there are still two or three I'd clear a night for.
Aspen is small enough that you walk it
The town being tiny is the reason any of this holds together. Brands and retailers put on their own events across downtown, there's an official map, and you get from one to the next on foot. Nobody is standing in line at a booth under a convention centre roof, which already puts it ahead of most things on the watch calendar.
The two anchor events are a Golden Hour Welcome Party on Friday evening, put on by Blancpain and Betteridge at the Casterline Goodman Gallery, and a Collector's Dinner on Saturday at The W Aspen, where the WatchTime crew run watch trivia over dinner. Both want an RSVP. A few events have limited spots, so the organisers would like you to set up a profile first.
Six events on Thursday alone
Gerald Charles takes a lounge at Oliver Smith Jeweler for Thursday and Friday, espresso and a full bar, leaning about as hard on the Gérald Genta connection as you'd expect.
At 3:30 Hermès gives Le temps suspendu 45 minutes, with an artisan watchmaker talking guests through what the brand calls the mechanism that holds time still. The complication launched in 2011. They run the session again on Friday morning.
Then two doors of jewellery. Buccellati has the Macri and Tulle watch collections out, hand engraving, diamonds and enamel work, with Franciacorta to drink. M.S. Rau does champagne and a preview of rare pieces from Patek Philippe, Cartier, Rolex, Tiffany and Ulysse Nardin.
The one I'd pick is Collector Cocktails: The State of the Market, Thursday evening at Stranahan's Whiskey Lodge, on the pre-owned market and where it goes from here. It's hosted with SYYNCH, a collection management platform, so you can see who's covering the bar. Doesn't bother me much. A room of collectors being honest about resale prices is worth an evening whoever pours the drinks.
NORQAIN's Friday is a run and an ice cream truck
The brand's US president Emmanuel Bütler is leading a 3K run through town at nine in the morning alongside Olympic gold medallist Alex Ferreira, with coffee back at the boutique afterwards. From noon the same brand is handing out ice cream off a truck. That's either good marketing or very good marketing.
IWC Schaffhausen is at Meridian Jewelers for all of Friday with novelties and rare pieces, eleven to six, no appointment mentioned.
Two bits of it travel past Aspen
It's a US retail event, so from here it's a schedule you read rather than one you use. The Glashütte Original watch is the exception, because it'll be public knowledge by Friday morning our time. The state-of-the-market session is the other one, being the sort of conversation that normally happens with the door shut.
More events are still being added to the programme.
