Free experimental watch exhibition opens in London later this month
Out-there designs for watch-heads
Later this month, an exhibition opens in London, and it’s one watch fans will not want to miss — not least because it’s free to visit.
The Seiko Power Design Project exhibition opens at Japan House on 27th August, and will showcase a whole host of out-there watch designs not intended for mass production.
They are concept pieces, displayed under the thematic banner 'Passionately and Obsessively Crafted Watches'.
For the uninitiated, Seiko Power Design Project is the department of Seiko that works on out-there and exploratory designs, to push the envelope and see what’s possible within the medium.
It has been around since 2001, and was brought back in 2022 after being wound down in 2009.
Let’s take a closer look at just a couple of the unusual watches you can expect to see at the show.
First up is Spherical Surface, by design director Yu Ishihara. Its face expands out in concentric circles, turning a small watch into a wrist-hogger.
“By aligning the curvature of all four structural tiers – glass, bezel, case, and outer case – I have created a continuous spherical form that extends across the entire watch,” says Ishihara.
Or there’s Machining Marks, which references the craftsmanship involved in both woodworking and watch making. This one is by Naoya Sukeda.
“One day, a video of woodworkers diligently absorbed in their craft caught my eye. It was footage of furniture making — seemingly far removed from watchmaking at first glance. Yet the textured surface of the wood, shaped by planes and files, bore quiet traces of the craftsperson’s meticulous hand and profound understanding of the material,” says Sukeda, who brings out that sensibility in the watch’s stepped face design:
Hands by Yuki Omori is one we can imagine going down a treat with the less conventional watch fan. Its face bears a cartoon cat, whose paws are used as watch hands.
Cute AF, obviously, while the cat pictured is actually Seiko’s mascot Ten-chan.
If you want to take in the exhibition first-hand, it’s on at Japan House from 27th August to 15th September. And it’s free. Japan House is found at 101-111 Kensington High Street, very close to High Street Kingston Underground station.
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