Worn & Wound
Awake’s Son Mai Collection Gets Three Intricate New Dials
One of the more interesting stories in the micro/independent watch scene that has matured over the last few years is Awake, a French brand that has done a lot of work to reshape their branding and presentation with their most recent releases. When we first started covering Awake, they traded in high concept ideas – watches tied to the Metaverse, and NASA, for instance. They were weird, but I always appreciated that they seemed to have a real perspective and weren’t going after the traditional watch enthusiast crowd. They always seemed happy to chart a new course. They’ve pivoted more recently, with their newer watches laser focused on traditional craft techniques, and in developing a signature design language. I was a pretty big fan of their first batch of Son Mai watches, with beautiful lacquered dials. Their latest release, the Son Mai “Fragments” collection, takes these lacquer dials to a logical next step, upping the complexity and depth along the way. The Fragments collection consists of three watches in the standard Son Mai case with gorgeous dials accented with mother of pearl. I know what you’re thinking: not another mother of pearl dial. While I totally understand the fatigue, these watches are worth taking a look at to acknowledge the novelty of the mother of pearl execution. Against a black lacquer base, each watch in the Fragments line consists of very small pieces of mother of pearl placed intricately on the dial surface to create a complex mos...
