Introducing: Awake Combines Japanese Inspiration And Vietnamese Craftsmanship In The Sơn Mài Fragments Collection

What We Know

This past year, I’ve been keeping an eye on Awake, a microbrand founded in 2019 focusing on metiers d’art at a competitive price point. When Awake’s founder, Lilian Thibault, stopped by the Hodinkee office a few months ago, he showed me many of the brand’s current editions, as well as some things coming down the pipeline. Amongst it all, there was one set of watches I couldn’t stop looking at, and this week Awake has released them in the Fragments collection.

This new trio of watches combines Vietnamese lacquering (a prominent part of many of the brand’s other releases), mother-of-pearl, and the Japanese technique of Raden. What does that all mean? Well, you end up with these stunning mosaic dials, made from so many tiny pieces of mother-of-pearl, all set against a background of black lacquer.

This collection features three references, each with a distinct dial color and varying sizes of mother-of-pearl fragments. This leads to dramatically different dials between the trio, with the green edition being the most intricate, the blue edition larger in scale, and the pink edition the most dramatic, featuring large pieces that contrast against more negative space. 

Lilian tells me that each of these dials takes around fifteen hours of manual work in the Vietnamese lacquering workshop to complete, thanks to the dozen layers of lacquer that are individually applied, dried, sanded, and polished, in addition to the manual setting of mother-of-pearl in each dial. Finally, the hour and minute hands, as well as the applied indices, are crafted in solid Super-LumiNova, and then polished steel is applied to create unique luminescent outlines for these elements.

These dials are housed in Awake’s typical 39mm steel case design, with a thickness of 11.8mm, a lug-to-lug measurement of 45.6mm, and polished across almost all of its surfaces. Inside is the La Joux-Perret G101, a familiar caliber for this segment of microbrands. As usual, it features contemporary specs, including a 68-hour power reserve, high-quality industrial finishing, and a custom tungsten rotor for Awake.

The Sơn Mài Fragments collection is limited to 100 pieces each, and priced at €2,250.

What We Think

I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen these designs multiple times in the metal, and I must say that these dials are truly spectacular. I suppose it’s no surprise to me, given that a watch I’ve been hunting for a few years now is a Credor with a mother-of-pearl inset into lacquer, which seems to be a soft spot for me in terms of dials. With the trio of Fragment dials, Awake has created an offering that feels unique at its price point, especially considering that very few people are making these kinds of dials at any price nowadays.

I think it would be hard to say that the dials are anything but stunning, though the very contemporary execution of lume might be polarizing to some. Its execution, however, is undoubtedly impressive, and the effect works quite well. What Awake has not made easy, however, is the, er, fragmenting of the colors and sizes—in addition to deciding between the three colors, you also have to figure out if the color you like has the fragment size that you like as well. For me, the largest fragment size in the pink dial is by far the best—the larger surface areas of mother-of-pearl make the texture more visible, and it is captivating as these pieces sit in the dark void of the lacquer.

The Basics

Brand: Awake
Model: Fragments Series

Diameter: 39mm
Thickness: 11.8mm
Case Material: Recycled 316L stainless steel
Dial Color: Green, Blue, Pink
Indexes: Applied, Super-LumiNova and polished steel
Lume: Super-LumiNova
Water Resistance: 50 meters
Strap/Bracelet: Jean Rousseau matte black calfskin strap lined with colored Alcantara

The Movement

Caliber: La Joux-Perret G101
Functions: Hours, minutes, seconds
Power Reserve: 68 hours
Winding: Automatic
Frequency: 28,800 VpH
Jewels: 24
Chronometer Certified: No

Pricing & Availability

Price: €2,250
Availability: Now
Limited Edition: Yes, 100 pieces each

For more, click here.