Opinion: The challenge of going from 0 to 100 post-Covid work events

In a seemingly long-ago era also known as pre-Covid times, events were a cornerstone in luxury lifestyle, with parties and launches dotting the calendars of VIP clients and the media. All that, of course, vanished in 2020 and 2021.

First, they were replaced by occasional Zoom sessions, where brand reps presented new products on screen as one munched on specially packaged multi-course meals delivered before the presentation. As restrictions eased, these were replaced by in-person sessions, with the number of attendees in each slot determined by the capacity limit in place at the time.

For some, these new avenues were enough. For many extroverts, however, they were a pale imitation of all-out shindigs that allowed them to get up close with new fashion, watch or jewellery collections, and then discuss said novelties with their, say, 30 friends who were also in attendance.

If you were one of those climbing the walls from boredom during the height of the pandemic, the packed lifestyle-event calendar in recent months should have more than made up for it.

In the past month, my WhatsApp and email inboxes have been deluged with multiple “save the date” messages and/ or event reminders daily. Just last month alone, there were major exhibitions by brands such as Hermès, Cartier and Vacheron Constantin; as well as a plethora of pop-ups, parties, openings, and lunches as the CEOs of many of these companies’ headquarters resumed their visits to this part of the world.

To be clear, many are actually fun. I will never tire of watching skilled artisans at work, or viewing intricate heritage pieces up close — I mean, it’s not every day that I get to set my eyes on an engraved pocket watch from 1822, one of the archival gems brought in by Vacheron Constantin for its recent An Anatomy of Beauty showcase at the ArtScience Museum.

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For me, there was just one darn problem with this suddenly packed work-event calendar — and that was finding the time to do, you know, actual work. (If there are any young’uns reading this, know that pulling all-nighters gets exponentially tougher after you cross your fourth decade.)



Some of my fellow journalists faced a different, if no less pressing, challenge: getting dressed up for so many events. It was not just that we had become used to dressing down (to say the least) while working from home. It was also because the pandemic had seen wardrobes whittled down for various reasons.



During a presentation of new watches by a brand last month, the lifestyle editor on my left lamented, “How? I don’t have enough clothes to wear already.” Not too long ago, she had been forced to discard several pieces that had yellowed after being left untouched in her closet for two years. “Tell me about it,” affirmed the watch and jewellery editor on my right, adding.



All this aside, it has been great to reconnect with friends and acquaintances, and get to admire and touch beautiful design objects again. And, for sure, no one is enjoying it more than luxury clients. During a recent chat, I asked watch collector and independent-watch fan Sumei Shum if she felt like there were one too many events taking place. “Not for me,” came the cheery reply. “I’ve been starved in the past two years!”



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