How Watches of Switzerland Turned Retail into an Experience

When you walk into the Watches of Switzerland showroom at Ross Park Mall, you step into a carefully orchestrated experience, a space where timepieces take center stage in a setting designed to feel both contemporary, luxurious and timeless. That’s by design. Every inch of that 4,049-square-foot space was sketched, discussed, refined and built to do more than sell watches. It was built to host.

Watches of Switzerland was not looking to build another store. They sought to create a destination that offered their clients a reason to linger, to connect, and to come back. Our team at Echeverria Design Group has worked with them for years and over time, a level of trust has developed that gives us room to push boundaries.

For this particular project, we had a simple but ambitious goal—to create a space where curated luxury watch selections from major Swiss watchmakers and the hospitality experience live together, seamlessly.

Balancing Brand Identities

Our job is to make sure that all these brands — Omega, Cartier, as well as other brands— can coexist under one roof without visual chaos. That takes orchestration. And it takes restraint. You cannot let one element scream louder than the rest. Each brand within the Watches of Switzerland environment has its own requirements, its own fabrication standards and its own way of doing things.

Rolex, for example, is as exacting with their interior environments as they are with their watch mechanisms. We respect that, as well as the unique distinction each brand brings to the table and how we can create a harmonic symphony in what may otherwise be a smorgasbord.

The Role of Hospitality in Luxury Retail Design

At the heart of this store lies a hospitality bar, which serves as a focal point that greets guests not just with visual impact, but with an invitation to pause, to reflect and to appreciate life’s most precious resource—our time. This isn’t a sales counter, it’s a setting designed to slow things down. Not an add-on, but a deliberate shift in how luxury retail engages customers today.

Hospitality is no longer a sidebar in these environments, it has become integral. But integrating a fully functional bar into a luxury retail floor plan is not as easy as dropping in a countertop and calling it a day.

Our role as both designer and architect of record meant we had to think through every technical layer: plumbing, drainage, refrigeration, code compliance and, most importantly, how to make all of that disappear behind refined materials and clean lines. The bar had to look effortless and intimate, but not to overshadow the true show, the Watch Brands.

Crafting Quiet Luxury Through Proportion

Every detail matters for a brand like this. But what sets Ross Park apart, even more than the quality of finishes or precision of installation, is the proportion. There’s a balance to the space. A calmness. We chose materials and composed volumes that create quiet luxury, not flash. When someone steps into the store, they shouldn’t feel overwhelmed. They should feel like the space was curated just for them.

Design Integrity Requires Continuity

Maintaining design integrity from concept to completion demands continuity in project management and working closely with our client’s store planning team, but also with each luxury watch brand’s design directives continuity. For Watches of Switzerland in Ross Park Mall, where multiple global brands, technical requirements and retail goals converge, the real work happens in the coordination and follow through.

Designers need to be involved not just at the beginning, but at each step of the project translating intent across engineering, fabrication and construction. Otherwise, the original vision gets diluted and lost.

Stripped Down to the Bones

We stripped this location down to the bones before we began. Every previous build-out was removed so we could reimagine the layout with clean sightlines and intentional adjacencies. Our drawings were shared directly with each luxury brand team and their design packages were fine-tuned with their respective fabricators to ensure every case, every fixture, every surface fit like it was meant to be there.

Orchestrating Flow and Atmosphere

There’s a rhythm to the flow inside Ross Park. From the moment someone walks in, there’s a visual tempo — an architectural narrative. You can browse the brands, but you’re also gently led toward the hospitality bar, which is subtly tucked into the back third of the store. It’s not in your face, but you’ll want to go there. The lighting gets warmer. The materials get softer. The atmosphere shifts, just enough. That’s how you invite someone into an experience without saying a word.

Design That Listens First

As designers, we don’t chase trends. We pay attention to them, of course. But more often, we watch how people behave. We watch how they respond to environments. We think about why someone might linger. Or why they might not. That’s the real work.

The Watches of Switzerland at the Ross Park Mall showroom represents where we are now as a firm. It reflects our belief that luxury is not about loud statements, but about considered gestures. It is about creating spaces that do more than look good in photos. They have to feel good. They have to function. And they have to reflect the brand values of our clients with precision.

Never a Formula, Always a Customized Design Process

We don’t have a house design formula. We have a design process. It’s collaborative. It’s immersive. And it’s built around the people who will use the space whether they’re shopping for a six-figure timepiece or a companion pouring a glass of wine at the bar.

We’re proud to have played a role in bringing this vision to life. And we’re already thinking about how to push it further. That’s what keeps us excited to come back to the drawing board.

Mario Echeverria is the Founder and President of Echeverria Design Group (EDG) and EDG Architecture LLC, award-winning interior design and architecture firms specializing in retail, hospitality, and commercial spaces. With over 40 years of experience, Mario and his team has worked with some of the most recognized brands in the world, including Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, and Mayors / Watches of Switzerland Jewelers. His collaborative design philosophy, coupled with an eye for detail and functionality, has made him a sought-after leader in commercial design.