"Who are you?": Seiko teases a panda-themed Power Design Project watch for October 6
Seiko is teasing something for October 6 — the teaser is a panda. The brand has posted two versions of the image now. The first went up on Seiko Singapore's account and showed only a head in silhouette. It's cryptic enough to look like a bear. The second, on Seiko's global account, shows the whole animal, sitting up and chewing on a stalk of bamboo. Both have the same line above the image, "Who are you?", plus the same date and the words "power design project" below it. The global post further adds that new product information is coming that day.
The obvious pull here is, well, a panda dial. A panda dial means a light dial with contrasting dark sub-dials. It's one of the most recognized terms in the hobby. If that's the joke, then whatever arrives on October 6 will be a chronograph, or at least something with sub-dials. Seiko hasn't said as much, though — explicitly at least.
That project is Seiko's own design laboratory. It started in 2001, ran until 2009, and came back in 2022 as a series of exhibitions in Tokyo. Seiko's in-house designers use it to build concepts that would rarely be part of a normal product meeting. For context, the 2024 run literally gave us watches for ninjas, vampires and games of hide-and-seek. This year's theme was "obsessive craftsmanship" — seven concepts each built around a single detail, like machining marks or the shape of the hands.
Most of those stay concepts. However, one didn't. Seiko announced the Collection 1 last October. It is a 20.2 mm reworking of the 1980s Tissé by designer Yuya Suganuma — the company released it in December at €405 to €450, limited to 500 pieces per finish. It sold out.
If we go by all this info, we could see a second commercial release, not just another exhibition.
Source(s)
Instagram: @seikowatchofficial / @seikosg
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