Red Dawn: Grand Seiko's New Spring Drive Chronograph GMT is Inspired By Nature

Style / World of Watches (WOW)

Aug 04, 2024 | By Ken Ke

Grand Seiko Spring Drive Chronograph GMT

A little more than 20 years ago, the Spring Drive technology made its debut in a Grand Seiko watch. That now-classic calibre is still the basis for the 9R series that powers all Grand Seiko Spring Drive watches. To celebrate this milestone, Grand Seiko busted out a new Spring Drive Chronograph GMT, inspired by the mountainous landscape in summer. This watch features a novel “dial-processing” technology that captures the Japanese appreciation for the delicate transition of time, reflected in the changing colours of summer mornings in this special place. In other words, this is Grand Seiko putting its interpretation of nature onto a dial.

To be more specific, the reddish hue is what the watchmakers see on summer mornings, for just 30 minutes before and after sunrise, when the sun illuminates the peaks of the Hotaka mountain range in

a unique way. The colour-changing dial of the watch represents this moment, made possible by a patented “Optical Multilayer Coating” process; savvy collectors will recognise this as a hallmark technology of the Seiko Epson watchmaking facility where one can see the Hotaka mountain range light up. Layers of nanoscale film come together to create an effect where the dial exhibits different hues depending on the viewing angle