In the middle of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 209 of the world’s top watch collectors are gooning over $15,000 Piagets, $20,000 Cartiers, $50,000 Patek Philippes, and $300,000 Rolexes. It’s the welcome dinner for the biannual RollieFest, a two-day, invitation-only meet-up of horological enthusiasts, dealers, and influencers where tickets cost $1,500 apiece. Not anyone can get in to RollieFest. “I cannot tell you how many people wanted to come to this. I was getting messages from strangers all over the world,” says Geoff Hess, the global head of watches at Sotheby’s who conceived the event in 2019. He reserved those coveted 209 spots for people he knows or follows on Instagram. “I offer that it’s sort of like getting a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. “It’s somewhere between Willy Wonka and La Cosa Nostra,” he says. “But no one gets whacked.” The next day, there is a “Watch Luncheon” at the One World Trade Center (“Please bring watches — all brands are welcome”). “Ascending to the 102nd floor, I find a sun-drenched horological bacchanal. A long table covered in Breguets, Rolexes, Patek Philippes, Audemars Piguets, and Universal Genèves stretches down the center of the room,” Steven Phillips-Horst (@gossipbabies) writes. “I approach the bounty, running my unsupervised median-income paws over millions of dollars’ worth of merchandise — gold, silver, diamond encrusted, leather banded, vintage, indie, brand new. Whoever owns the gems I’m sweating on simply does not care. They’re among friends. They trust me now.” Read Phillips-Horst’s full dispatch from RollieFest: