Watches for ELA is returning for a second edition on November 9, bringing a focused charitable dimension to Christie’s Rare Watches sale.
The event gathers unique pieces from leading watchmaking houses and independent creators in support of ELA, the European Leukodystrophy Association, whose work centres on families affected by leukodystrophies.
For collectors, it’s the kind of sale where rarity carries a purpose beyond ownership.
At a glance
- Watches for ELA will hold its second edition on November 9 as part of Christie’s Rare Watches sale.
- Twenty watchmaking houses and independent watchmakers are contributing unique creations for the charity auction.
- The sale will benefit ELA, with Zinedine Zidane’s first watch, a Cartier Pasha, standing among the headline lots.
Christie’s gives ELA a collector-facing stage
The auction places ELA in front of one of watch collecting’s most attentive audiences, where provenance, craft and scarcity all matter.
ELA has spent decades raising awareness of leukodystrophies, rare genetic diseases that attack the central nervous system.
Guy Alba and Jean-Luc Corti have led that fight for more than 35 years, working with families, European ELA units, doctors, researchers and educators.
The sale channels the specialist energy of watchmaking into funding and visibility for a field that still depends heavily on research and long-term support.
Twenty watchmakers put creativity into one-off pieces
The second edition brings together 20 watchmaking houses and independent watchmakers, each contributing through its own language of design and craft.
That range is important because the strongest charity watch auctions don’t rely only on logos or limited numbers.
They work when makers bring genuine invention to the table, giving collectors a reason to care about the object as well as the mission behind it.
Some participating houses have also worked with artists for this edition, adding another layer of authorship to the pieces created for the sale.
The result is a compact cross-section of contemporary watchmaking, shaped by a shared commitment rather than a commercial collection brief.
Zinedine Zidane’s Cartier Pasha adds personal weight
Among the most emotionally resonant lots is Zinedine Zidane’s first watch, a Cartier Pasha with a story that reaches back to the beginning of his professional life.
Zidane acquired the watch with his first paycheck while playing for Girondins de Bordeaux 35 years ago.
That provenance gives the Pasha a significance that sits apart from typical auction language.
It isn’t just a celebrity-owned watch, but an object tied to a formative moment in the career of one of football’s defining figures.
Zidane has also worked alongside ELA for more than 25 years, which gives the inclusion of the watch a direct personal connection to the association’s work.
A sale shaped by rarity and generosity
Watches for ELA sits at an intersection the watch world understands well, where objects can carry technical, emotional and cultural value at once.
For collectors, the appeal is clear enough.
Unique creations from notable houses and independent makers rarely appear in such a concentrated setting, and the charity dimension gives each acquisition a more meaningful place in a collection.
For ELA, the value lies in visibility and in the resources that can help patients and families facing rare and difficult diseases.
On November 9, the measure of success won’t be limited to hammer prices, but to the hope each watch can help create beyond the sale room.
