Interview: Ming Thein on the All New Project 21, a Tantalum Dress Watch with a Restored Vintage Movement
If MING Watches isn’t on your radar, I don’t really know what to tell you. The brand, which has been around since 2017 and was founded by photographer and watch enthusiast Ming Thein (his current job title at the brand, at least according to LinkedIn, is ‘Supreme Overlord’), has stood at the forefront of the small independent movement since the day it launched, and has been a tremendous object lesson in the ability and aspiration of small brands. In the nearly eight years since the brand launched, they’ve made a lot of very cool watches, and possibly cooler than the watches themselves has been the diversity of their offering - diversity in style, functionality, and (notably) price. Now, MING has released its latest marvel, the MING 21.01 ‘Project 21,’ a dream watch for Ming himself and a clear summation of what the brand has been and done up to this point while offering a glimpse into the eponymous founder’s head and maybe even offering some clues as to what will come next for the brand. So what is the Project 21? Well, put simply, it’s a 35mm tantalum-cased dress watch built around a historically significant ultra-thin movement. Factor in a little more nuance, and it’s exceedingly clear that the Project 21 is an experiment in pushing the brand to its limits, just to see where those limits happen to be. The new watch, which will only be available in extraordinarily limited quantities, was inspired by a challenge thrown down at a 2023 collector’s d...
Fratello
