The East’s hour

Yves Meylan is the director of international retail for luxury Swiss watchmaker Jaeger-LeCoultre. Executive caught up with him to get the latest trends in high end watches, from design to the sales floor.   Tell me a little bit about yourself. Your job is a big responsibility during these very volatile times, especially since 2000, when most probably the luxury brands had to redefine their approach. I am in charge of retail for the brands’ development of all our boutique networks. Today we have 65 boutiques around the world. We have seven in the Middle East. I am also in charge of the ‘after sales services’ which is another hot topic in the watch industry because all the watches that we sell, after three to five years, need to be serviced, you know, cleaned and such. So the more watches around the market, the more we will need watchmakers to