academe
Distinguished Member
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Prices in Singapore for luxury goods are generally inflated relative to other industrialised economies, much like HK and mainland China. Prices for designer goods, including luxury watches, in Singapore often exceed those in Europe. For example, the MSRP for Church's shoes or other Northhampton shoemakers is often twice of what the MSRP is in the UK. MSRP for many luxury watches in Singapore are typically 10-20% over the MSRP here in Europe/the UK, to the extent that basically even with the customary discount, you're still paying the MSRP in Europe! I was looking at Reverso 1931s in Singapore last year and they were quoting me on the order of £6000 before discount. The 1931 can be had for £5350 at full MSRP here in the UK, and around £4500 if you pick it up in Heathrow in duty free. They weren't offering me much more than a 15% discount, so really not much of a savings if any. Basically I put it down to a hyper-materialistic, super money conscious, upper middle-class and noveau riche for whom wearing a luxury watch, driving a luxury car, etc. is a must-have status symbol, and for which they are willing to pay silly money.
I could have sworn Lange 1s were just $31,000 last year?? It's pretty surprising that you can get Langes cheaper in the USA than in Singapore, watch mecca that it is.Great story.
Watch odyssey update - today I went to one of eight AL&S boutiques in the world. Yay for me!
The boutique is surprisingly small, a real hole in the wall, but I guess that's to be expected in space-scarce Singapore. It has not officially launched yet, it's sort of in the soft launch phase.
Service in the boutique was excellent, with refreshments appearing out of nowhere without any prompting. I was also given a catalogue when I left, once again without any prompting. It is a substantial piece of work, and makes other catalogues look... cheap. After the AL&S boutique I dropped into The Hour Glass to look at some Breguets and you should have seen the look on the HG salespeople when they spotted the AL&S carrier bag...
Being possessed of a rather cruel streak, I put the salesman through his paces with a stream of questions about the various Lange models (most of which I knew the answers to already... heh) - he performed remarkably well, with the only hiccup being his explanation of why there was a $2,500 price difference between the WG and PG Lange 1s ("more gold" in the WG version...???!!). A welcome change from the usual clueless AD staff.
Some observations....
The Lange 1s are beautiful, as always. I have now set my heart on a WG Lange 1; in partficular ref. 101.027x would be a grail for me. I got to spend nearly 20min with a loupe examining the Lange 1 movement, which was absolutely fantastic.
The (new) Grand Langes are in their way possibly even more well proportioned than the Lange 1s - their slimmer profile is noticeable, and very appealing. I had a hard time deciding which I liked better, the Grand or vanilla Lange 1.
The Zeitwerk is interesting, but sadly proportioned like a hockey puck.
The prices were a little... surprising - the Lange 1 is SGD$45,000, which is approx USD$36,300. The discount was bad, nay, pathetic for Singapore - just 5%.
AL&S have withdrawn their brand from The Hour Glass, so Sincere Watches are the only other outfit in town stocking AL&S. The salesman helpfully informed me that the discount was also "locked" at 5% at that other AD.
Anyway, to make up for the lack of boutique/AD photos, a gratuitous watch photo:
Prices in Singapore for luxury goods are generally inflated relative to other industrialised economies, much like HK and mainland China. Prices for designer goods, including luxury watches, in Singapore often exceed those in Europe. For example, the MSRP for Church's shoes or other Northhampton shoemakers is often twice of what the MSRP is in the UK. MSRP for many luxury watches in Singapore are typically 10-20% over the MSRP here in Europe/the UK, to the extent that basically even with the customary discount, you're still paying the MSRP in Europe! I was looking at Reverso 1931s in Singapore last year and they were quoting me on the order of £6000 before discount. The 1931 can be had for £5350 at full MSRP here in the UK, and around £4500 if you pick it up in Heathrow in duty free. They weren't offering me much more than a 15% discount, so really not much of a savings if any. Basically I put it down to a hyper-materialistic, super money conscious, upper middle-class and noveau riche for whom wearing a luxury watch, driving a luxury car, etc. is a must-have status symbol, and for which they are willing to pay silly money.
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