Grand Seiko’s 20 “springs”
An event in Milan to celebrate 20 years of Spring Drive, the technological wonder by Grand Seiko and the parent company’s top of the range
It took years of study to achieve the desired result which, in the end, led to Spring Drive. A globally unique technology because it unites the energy produced by a luxury mechanical watch with a circuit control system that perfectly integrates with a high-precision electronic regulator. Powered by a spring, it requires no energy source and is therefore totally self-sufficient. And that’s not all. It also has an exclusive mechanism for speed control which incorporates an integrated circuit, an electronic damper and a quartz crystal. Everything is regulated by Tri-synchro, which, as the name implies, uses three types of power to regulate the mobile components and stabilize the synchronism: the mechanical power of the spring together with electric and electromagnetic power. For lovers of technicalities and important complications, further information on the Spring Drive world could be given but more than enough has been said here to demonstrate the pride that gravitates around it at Seiko, or rather, Grand Seiko, the Japanese brand’s top of the range. Grand Seiko was first launched in 1960 with the aim of creating a perfect watch by overcoming the limits of precision that technologies of the time imposed and offering a manufacturedproduct inspired by the pure essence of watchmaking in terms of precision, durability, lightness and uncomplicated usage, together with Japanese aesthetics.Spring Drive, on the other hand, debuted in 1998, a marvel that has now reached its first 20 years and which the company has decided to celebrate with a decidedly glamorous event held in a private house in Milan where the works by Japanese artist Kyoji Nagatani will be on display alongside the latest Spring Drive creations in thethree collections, Heritage, Elegance and Sport.
