The central premises that Rolex occupied at the confluence of Paseo de Gràcia and Gran Via de Barcelona already has a new tenant. It will be another watch brand that will occupy the establishment, Swatch, which will once again have a direct presence at street level in the Catalan capital thanks to this operation.
Currently, the brand is distributed in multiple prestigious jewelers and also has a corner in El Corte Inglés in Plaça Catalunya and a Swatch store in the L'illa Diagonal shopping center. Now, it is establishing itself on the city's most emblematic commercial avenue, where other watch brands also have boutiques, although, in this case, its closest commercial neighbor will be Uniqlo.
The arrival of Swatch at number 18 of Paseo de Gràcia, anticipated by Modaes, has not yet been made official, but passers-by can already sense that a watch brand is setting up in the premises, because for a few days now it has been displaying green signs with the expression Tic-Tac. The store, characterized by its curved shape, has an area of 400 square meters.
The Tous jewelry group, official distributor of Rolex, decided to close the store at the end of February with the aim of unifying the two establishments that the Swiss luxury watch brand had on Paseo de Gràcia. Thus, the boutique at number 18 was abandoned and the decision was made to reinforce the store located at number 75, between Provença and Mallorca streets. The number of display windows was expanded from three to five and the new store concept that Rolex is adopting internationally was implemented.
A few years ago, Swatch had already had a store on Paseo de Gràcia, in one of the commercial premises of Casa Pascual i Pons, recently renovated and where the new Adidas flaghship is now located. Its presence in Madrid is much more prominent, as in addition to being in El Corte Inglés it has stores on Serrano, Goya and Preciados streets.
The Swatch brand belongs to the Swatch Group, the world's leading manufacturer of Swiss watches, owner of 17 jewelry and watch brands including Tissot, Rado, Longines, Balmain, Hamilton, Omega, Flik Flak or Breguet. In 2022, the multinational invoiced 7,696 million euros and its stock market value reached 15,000 million euros.