Luxury retailer Bucherer reopens its iconic watch store TimeDome in Las Vegas

With a curved façade comprising 21 individual 22-foot-tall glass panels, there are no doors inside the Bucherer 1888 TimeDome in Las Vegas.

The 18,848-square-foot flagship for the Swiss purveyor of high-end watches and jewellery, located in the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace, is larger than the previous TimeDome, which made the Guinness Book of World Records in 2005 as the biggest timepiece emporium in the world. It reopens with a completely new design after a year-and-a-half closure for renovations.

Walking in, customers will see a Rolex boutique on the left, Cartier on the right, and a distinguished dome and grand staircases in the centre. No doorways separate the shops for elite brands such as Breitling, Cartier, Girard-Perregaux, Grand Seiko, H. Moser & Cie, Omega, Tudor and Ulysse Nardin; the store is designed for easy exploration and discovery.

Throughout, there are rotating art installations; for its opening on June 8, there were works featured by Andy Warhol, David La Chapelle, Damien Hirst, and KAWS – with a total value of more than $10 million (€9.3 million), according to Bucherer.

“This store is a one-of-a-kind design,” says Ira Melnitsky, president of Bucherer USA and chief executive officer of Tourneau. “It’s very broad, with tremendously high ceilings. So we brought in a lot of one-of-a-kind elements just for that space, including a large, beautiful wraparound dual staircase that comes down from the upper level in the centre of the store. A lot of great materials like Italian marble and Venetian plaster really frame the space in a different way than any other store we’ve made before.”

That’s what the well-known-in-Europe Bucherer Group wants for its new TimeDome Las Vegas Flagship store: enticements both inside and out, catering to a longtime high-end clientele while attracting passersby who might become new customers.

“We think we will have unmatched hospitality,” Melnitsky says. “We learn from our Swiss colleagues, and we will bring Swiss hospitality into the Las Vegas market.”

There are more than fancy and delicate decorations. The store claims to be "more selective" about the displayed collections. "Intentionally, our clients want us to do some of that pre-editing for them,” Melnitsky says. “They want to make sure that we bring them the best of the best."

This tactic of pursuing the top tier of customers echoes the one used by LVMH-owned Tiffany & Co., which just reopened its own flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York City. “It’s definitely a trend,” says Eric Wind, the head of Wind Vintage, a dealer based in Palm Beach, Florida. “It's all about catering to the higher-net-worth individuals in terms of the retail experience."

There will be a number of one-of-a-kind watches or probably one-of-the-only-kind in the US, according to Melnitsky. But you can only find them when you visit the Vegas store.

As the watch retailer began the journey into jewelry back in 2021, it also brought a collection of Bucherer Fine Jewellery to the TimeDome, along with a lineup of branded jewelry, including Chanel, Messika, Rahaminov, and Serafino Consoli, on the second floor. “It’s natural for the consumer. And they’ve been asking for it,” Melnitsky says. “We just weren't meeting that need."

The reopening also aims to promote the Bucherer-Tourneau rebranding process. In 2018 the Swiss-based company took over the American luxury watch retailer Tourneau, which has 28 stores nationwide. The TimeDome was formerly branded with the Tourneau name.

“We look forward to bringing our new identity as well as our existing practices to the consumers of Las Vegas," Melnitsky says.