Photography: Sybilla Patrizia
Article: Leo Lewis

“The hands of the Japanese rock musician-turned-maestro watchmaker move with the precision of a stage magician. A final layer of swaddling is folded away and Kawauchiya lays the Grand Seiko Kodo dead centre of a dark-blue, felt-lined tray. (…) The company’s most complicated watch, incorporating a constant-force tourbillon to achieve an extraordinary level of accuracy, has won one of the industry’s highest honours – the 2022 Chronometry Prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève. And it’s spearheading the narrative that, when it comes to grand horlogerie, Japan means business.”


Photographed at the Grand Seiko Studio Shizukuishi in Iwate, designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma.