THE LION KING

Who doesn’t know Seiko in this part of the world? The brand was a part of my life and childhood growing up, from the wall clocks I had at home growing up to the earliest watches I owned. Yes, my collecting days started early, with a selection of Flik-Flaks, Casios, Swatches, Seikos that I’d pick from each day I went to school. I had a Seiko 5 when I entered my teens, one that I saved up for, and had until quite recently.

But though Seiko is ubiquitous in the Far East, its secrets are in the upper echelons of the company, from the prestigious and specialised Credor collection that’s dedicated to ultra-fine and high complications, to the pragmatic yet highly sophisticated Grand Seiko. The latter demonstrated that particular quality when it introduced the reference SBGZ001 “Snowflake” hammered case at the Baselworld fair earlier this year.

Grand Seiko has hosted journalists for the last 15 years in the summer, a dozen at a time, to visit its facilities across all of Japan, and like its watches, each press visit gets better and more engaging, with more information steadily flowing out of the watchmaker. The programme itself doesn’t change, but as the brand readies its strategy for global engagement,