Two short years ago, Grand Seiko announced its most advanced Hi-Beat movement and matched it with a new watch design that built on the historical strength of the Grand Seiko style while looking ahead to the future. In 2022, the challenge for the Grand Seiko team was to apply the principles of its new Evolution 9 design to a range of sports watches already beloved by die-hard Grand Seiko fans. Namely, the GMT-Chronograph, the Diver, and the Sport GMT. These are not watches to be coddled and pampered. Rather, they are tools made without compromise for Grand Seiko’s most active collectors.
In approaching the mission to update the sports category to Evolution 9, the team at Grand Seiko, including product developer Kohei Egashira, asked themselves a most elemental question. “What makes a watch a sports watch in the first place?” If dressier timepieces are for walking or more subdued activities, a sports watch, they reasoned, needed to be highly legible even at full speed when running.
A breakthrough came when the team looked to the Japanese approach to sports, which emphasizes self-improvement and rising above one’s own unique challenges over merely notching a score or defeating an opponent. Success, in this context, is achieved through discipline and proper form. In this spirit, Grand Seiko sought to improve the already legendary robustness, legibility, and operability of its sports watches. What resulted are five new models with titanium cases and bracelets, Spring Drive calibers, and attributes matched to the lifestyles of Grand Seiko’s most active fans.
They build on the formula laid down with the first Evolution 9 models, best exemplified by last year’s SLGH005, which found inspiration in the Grand Seiko Style established in 1967 and the forests of white birch trees near the Grand Seiko Studio Shizukuishi.
The new Evolution 9 sport watches feature cases with a lower center of gravity; wider tapered bracelets and lugs for better stability and comfort; more impressively legible dials and bezels with enhanced, Lumibrite-filled markers and handsets; and even a new suite of highly legible numerals.
Reinforcing the sport direction, each new watch has a slightly asymmetrical case to enable the implementation of crown guards. These watches advance the qualities enthusiasts love most about Grand Seiko – the mastery of tension and angularity in case design; the unmatched flair for hands, indexes, and dials – with the modern collector in mind. It’s all part of a never-ending pursuit to create the ultimate wristwatch.
The Dive Watch
Rendered in High-Intensity Titanium, SLGA015 is Grand Seiko’s new dive watch that adopts the design cues of the Evolution 9 Collection. Measuring 43.8mm by 13.8mm with 200 meters of water resistance, it is the definition of a robust go-anywhere tool watch designed without compromise. The smallest and thinnest diver with Spring Drive movement to date, it wears with a subtle touch thanks to its high-intensity titanium case and a lower center of gravity, a hallmark of the Evolution 9 design. The unidirectional bezel is made of ceramic for a clean look and superior scratch resistance. And a diver’s clasp ensures a comfortable, secure wearing experience over a wetsuit. Excellent legibility at great depths is ensured thanks to a generous application of Lumibrite in the hands and indexes. These components follow in the footsteps established for Evolution 9 two years ago, albeit in a format suited to the luminosity demanded of a Grand Seiko diver.
Grand Seiko’s newest Spring Drive movement, the 9RA5, was enlisted to power this next-generation diver. It’s slim, accurate to ± 10 seconds per month, and offers a power reserve of five days, which can be monitored on the power-reserve indicator on the dial. A very subtle black motif inspired by the Kuroshio Current, also known as the Black Stream (which brings warm equatorial water north in the Pacific), also graces the dial. The intricate design adds a depth of its own that will immediately resonate with Grand Seiko fans while taking nothing away from the excellent at-a-glance legibility of
The Chronograph GMT
The Spring Drive Chronograph with GMT function is a longtime enthusiast favorite. Functionally, it is one of the most complex watches that Grand Seiko makes. Thanks to the Evolution 9 design, it’s now even more ergonomic and enjoyable to use and wear. For the first time in a watch with these complications, it features a rotating bezel that enables tracking a third time zone. To keep the size down and preserve visual harmony, the bezel’s width has been reduced as much as possible while preserving this rotating functionality. The numerals on the bezel and elsewhere use a redesigned font for true at-a-glance legibility. The number “6,” for example, has an exaggerated opening to differentiate it from the number 8.
The pushers on the new Chronograph GMT have a more compact profile, eschewing the screw-down version seen on other Grand Seiko Chronograph GMT watches. This not only causes the watch to feel and wear smaller, but it also makes engaging with the chronograph more natural and seamless. The smooth, Spring Drive-powered chronograph function is never far from reach and is now that much more likely to be used. Grand Seiko created two versions of the Chronograph GMT in 2022. The 9R86 version is unlimited, features a black dial, and provides accuracy ± 15 seconds per month. SBGC249 has a blue dial and bezel, runs on the 9R96 Spring Drive Caliber, which is accurate to ± 10 seconds per month, and is limited to 700 pieces in celebration of the 15th anniversary of the Spring Drive Chronograph GMT.
The GMT
The most immediately apparent quality of this Spring Drive GMT is its slightly asymmetrical case, the result of adding sleek but sturdy crown guards to the case’s right side. Numerals purposely enhanced for legibility stand out more than in any other new sport model in the Evolution 9 Collection. While more compact than the numerals on previous GMT bezels, these benefit from greatly improved at-a-glance legibility. The SBGE285 has a delicately textured light grey dial that echoes the morning mists in mountainous Nagano Prefecture, home of Grand Seiko Spring Drive watchmaking, while recalling classics from the Grand Seiko catalog such as the SBGA211, influenced by the snowfall in Shinshu.
While vibrant GMT hands have typified Spring Drive Sport GMTs in the past, the two new models that debuted with Evolution 9 offer a more restrained take on this component. The light-grey-dialed SBGE285’s 24-hour hand is black, while the black-dialed SBGE283 has one in silver tone.
