If demand for luxury watches is any sort of yardstick, levelling-up of the northeast of England is paying off.
In the past week, Goldsmiths has reopened a fully refurbished and extended multibrand showroom in Gateshead’s Metrocentre and opened a brand new showroom dedicated exclusively to fine watches a few doors down from its historic Northern Goldsmiths showroom on Blackett Street in Newcastle, where a cluster of high end jewellers including Rox and Berry’s also serve local watch and jewellery lovers.
These projects closely follow the reopening of one of Goldsmiths’ largest showrooms in Liverpool.
The double-fronted Metrocentre showroom has separate entrances for a large Rolex room and its main floor with branded areas for TAG Heuer, Breitling, Tudor and Hublot along with displays for Tissot, Grand Seiko, Gucci and Doxa.
Goldsmiths’ parent company, The Watches of Switzerland Group, has a stated aim of growing its jewellery business, which currently accounts for around 6% of group sales.
Goldsmiths Metrocentre has Marco Bicego and Kiki Mcdonough to an enhanced jewellery offer that also includes FOPE, Messika and Mappin & Webb.
Rolex is not represented at Goldsmiths’ new dedicated watch boutique in Newcastle, because it is stocked by the historic Northern Goldsmiths a few doors down Blackett Street.
But there are plenty of big hitters in the new store including the largest Omega shop-in-shop within the Goldsmiths showroom portfolio, in addition to branded areas for Tudor, Zenith and Girard-Perregaux — each of which have also been given window displays.
“We are delighted with the expansion of our Goldsmiths Metro showroom and the new dedicated watch only showroom on Blackett Street,” says Craig Bolton, president of the Watches of Switzerland Group, UK, and Europe.
“Newcastle has always been a key city for our business, rooted in our history we are delighted to bring these two new showrooms to the local area,” he adds.
