Incidentally, the world’s first analog light-powered watch, a technology later named Eco-Drive, will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year. By combining new technologies with natural materials and traditional handcraft techniques, The CITIZEN continues this commitment to creating a better future through innovation.
The new AQ4103-16W (fall) and AQ4100-22A (winter) are the latest additions to The CITIZEN’s Iconic Nature Collection, a line of watches that captures fleeting moments of nature’s beauty. The smooth, rounded bezels of the Iconic Nature Collection act as picture windows, framing the finely-detailed washi paper dials. By evoking a traditional architectural concept known as shakkei (borrowed scenery), these bezels create the feeling of glimpsing an ancient Japanese landscape each time the wearer looks at the dial.
To create the nuanced colors and textures of each dial, The CITIZEN’s designers drew inspiration from The Pillow Book, a 11th-century collection of poetic observations by Sei Shonagon, a lady-in-waiting to Empress Teishi. The richly hued dial of the AQ4103-16W, for example, was inspired by a passage in which Sei Shonagon describes the beauty of an autumn dusk:
On autumn evenings, when the glittering sun sinks close to the edge of the hills and the crows fly back to their nests in threes and fours and twos, more charming still is a file of wild geese, like specks in the distant sky. Then, when the sun has set, one’s heart is moved by the sound of the wind and the hum of the insects.
You don’t need a degree in Japanese literature to appreciate the AQ4103-16W dial. The Pillow Book is a work centered on the Japanese aesthetic concept of okashi, and the dial of the AQ4103-16W uses this concept to depict the beauty inherited over a thousand years through the use of hand-applied gold flakes on textured black washi paper. This results in an effect reminiscent of kasure, a Japanese term for the fading, scratchy stroke created by a brush that’s starting to run dry. The dial also features an orange gradient fading toward 10 o’clock that’s similar to nijimi, a blotting effect in Japanese art caused by ink spreading beyond the original brushstroke. The Super Titanium case finished in Duratect Amber Yellow adds a vintage touch, and makes a perfect complement to the dark crocodile leather strap.