Borna Boschunjak
How can you quickly incite interest as a budding watch brand? Certainly, you can talk about great value for money, or uniquely decorated movements, but one thing that most potential buyers attract is the dial. These are components that catch your eye through your Instagram feed, and components that can make or break your purchase decision, even if all the other components are just right. Awake was looking for its own space in clock games and found it in Sennmài – Vietnamese lacquer painting. The third repetition of this exercise is the new sơnmài frost leaves of awakening. This adds another layer of complexity to the dialing execution.
Dial
Get straight to what makes matte leaves so special. As the name suggests, the French brand has been learning from the sơnmài silver leaf and Jurassic watch project and is currently adding a layer of silver leaf to its dial manufacturing process. On top of a layer of black lacquer, the awake craftsman first adds it, then flips the silver leaves through sand and apply dark pigment. To really highlight the texture, more layers of silver are added and colored with lighter pigments before the entire dial is sanded to reveal complexity. Finally, to smooth the surface, the dial maker adds a coat of lacquer for sparkle, citing 15 hours of work per dial.
When you get to the design of the dial itself, at first glance it seems like there’s much to talk about here. This is a good thing, and please tell me why. First of all, I don’t want to see this dial being corrupted by unnecessary lines of text. The “handmade” is squeezed on one line of the brand name, both sides of the 6 o’clock index, is just the right amount. Secondly, it’s not that Awakening didn’t pay attention to the small designs there.
The hands and indexes look almost like rendering, floating above the sơnmài dial. Awake achieves this effect by applying polished indicators and hands faceted over Lume’s 3D blocks. It’s really a very neat effect. This means that the appliques are subtly highlighted during the day, and after darkening, the room gently glows around the edges.
That said, I hope Awake will pay more attention to the brand’s logo by having a lot of work on the dial and small elements like room design. I generally appreciate the minimalism of the text, but the default typeface for “Awake” at 12 o’clock causes unnecessary damage to the clock.
case
You can have the best dial in the world, but you can also make a desk clock without a well-designed case to provide a good fit on your wrist. Thankfully, Awake’s designers were aware of this when making matte leaves, resulting in almost sophisticated events, except for the horizontal brush along the sides of the case. If you look closer to the design, you will notice that the lug has small protrusions rather than properly tracking the case line. Interestingly, the widely polished bezel simply tilts without faceted edges and continues on the same shiny top of the main case. The results match the dial index and are very reflective, but I think it has an alternating effect of surface treatments that helps add well-defined lines.
With a diameter of 39.5mm and lug-to-lug 45.6mm, the Snanmai Frostrief hits the modern everyday wearer’s sweet spot, and the same goes for the 50m water resistance. As for thickness, 11.8mm is a bit thicker for a time-only watch, but that’s true for good reason. When talking to the brand, I found that the dial base is at least 1mm thick, much more than the basic dial. If you ask me, it’s a pretty small trade-off.
strap
Remember how I talked about the small details? More specifically, a strap, or buckle, is another example of what you’ll be concerned about when you wake up and feel good about designs. It’s actually quite complicated, so rather than letting the buckle explain in detail, I recommend looking closely at the photo above. Its sides aligned more closely with the thickness of the strap, and I appreciate that the thin sections that actually stay on top of the straps are aligned thinly for a smooth look.
And speaking of the straps, Awakening chose delugs’ neutral grey nubuck, paired it with the sơnmài frost leaves. It’s a completely offensive and neutral choice to really make the dial shine. If you’re a little calmer to your liking, the quick release spring bar and 20mm lug width make it much easier to get something.
Movement
The La Joux-Perret G101 is not the biggest movement and may look a little smaller even in a medium-sized 39mm case. Awake does something really clever to fix this with a laser-engraved ring that surrounds the movement and sits under the sapphire crystal. The movement itself is very simply decorated with customized rotors, but if you have to use an open case bag, you’d like to see this more than exposed (or engraved on the spec sheet) metal.
In terms of movement itself, the G101 has established a misguided look, similar to its 68-hour power reserve (ETA 40 years old) as a priority option over its counterparts as well as the ETA 2824/Selita SW200. Essentially, it shares much of its design with the Miyota 9000. This is an excellent move that often doesn’t get the acclaim it deserves — but moves production to Switzerland and upgrades key components like regulators.
verdict
With many microbrands beginning to dominate entry-level luxury spaces at the entry level, Awake has naturally tried to establish itself by carving out a specific niche. The sơnmài lacquer is undoubtedly vague, but Awakening has fully embraced it and evolved it. In particular, Sennmài Frosted Leaf continues with certain brand design signatures well. This signature is my favorite with floating index and hands, and its final line has a rather spectacular dial. Prices show that there is a growing attention to detail, not just dials. This touches on better movement, resulting in a package that exceeds the weight. It certainly isn’t as affordable as your entry-level microbrand, but it also offers what Micros can’t do on the road, and it deserves your attention for that.
Wake up and get pricing and availability of leaf leaves
The collection of awake sơnmài frost leaves is limited to 50 pieces per colorway. Price: 2,150 euros (exc.vat)
Brand Awake Model Sơnmài Frosted Leaf Case Dimensions 39mm(d) x 11.8mm
