Hodinkee
Hands-On: Two Wild Dials From Ming, With The "Peepshow" and J.N. Shapiro Collaboration "Lightning"
You could easily argue that Ming is a materials and manufacturing incubator masquerading as a watch company. Lume that glows white. The lightest ever mechanical watch. The world's first 3D-printed titanium bracelet-strap hybrid. All of these are associated with pretty incredible products, but, to some extent, I think it's fair to say the watches themselves are vehicles for showcasing cool innovation. That's not to say the watches are anything but great. But on occasion they're solutions looking for a problem. I kind of love the brand for it. That kind of innovation also extends to dial making, where Ming has recently released two really interesting dial-making exercises in their collaboration with J.N. Shapiro for the 37.06 "Lightning" and standalone 29.06 "Peepshow." I recently had the chance to go hands-on with a few novelties from Ming. The brand, of course, had a great coup when the 37.09 "Bluefin" beat Tudor and a few others for the best sports watch at GPHG in 2024. They followed up with the 37.09 Uni, which I would say is their most practical release of late. The 56.00 "Starfield" is pretty wild but not to my taste, so I gravitated toward covering the two more dial-focused releases of this year (and their LW01 lightweight watch, which will get a future story on its own). It seemed fitting to start with the Ming x J.N. Shapiro 37.06 "Lightning," since I was actually photographing Shapiro's most recent release the same day. And boy, is the watch stunning in person. Th...
