Whereas these values are nonetheless core to the model, over the previous 18 years — and particularly since 2019, when the watchmaker launched its model philosophy, “The Nature of Time,” an ode to the significance that the Japanese tradition locations on seasonality and time — Grand Seiko has made it a practice to create dials that mirror its pure surroundings.
“For a really very long time, our communication was targeted on the technological superiority of our model,” Akio Naito, president of Seiko Watch Company, stated in an interview final month at Seiko Home Ginza in Tokyo. (Seiko, the value-priced, volume-driven Japanese watchmaker that traces its roots to 1881, created Grand Seiko in 1960 to provide its most luxurious product. In 2017, the marque was spun off, turning into its personal unbiased model.)
“However as we began competing towards the highest Swiss luxurious manufacturers, who had already began emphasizing the heritage and craftsmanship versus pure performance,” Mr. Naito added, “we got here up with this concept of ‘The Nature of Time,’ which captures the DNA of our model from two totally different angles: craftsmanship and our lovely environment.”
Few timepieces embody that twin mandate higher than the Tentagraph, Grand Seiko’s first mechanical chronograph, powered by the Caliber 9SC5. Launched on the Watches and Wonders Geneva commerce truthful in March, the mannequin was the product of a yearslong effort to develop a chronograph with a 72-hour energy reserve and a high-beat motion, which ticks 10 instances a second versus the usual six- or eight-tick calibers, producing extra correct time retaining.
The acrostic poem constructed into the mannequin’s identify displays these attributes: Ten-t-a-graph is a mix of ten, for 10 beats; the letter t, for 3 days of energy reserve; and the letter a and the suffix -graph as a result of it’s an computerized chronograph.
The Dial
With its ceramic bezel full with tachymeter scale and three subdials, or registers, organized within the acquainted triangular configuration utilized by most chronographs, the Tentagraph appears like a standard mannequin.
