Grand Seiko Evolution 9 ‘Ushio’ 300m Diver UFA Blue 40.8mm Watch SLGB023

The ‘Ushio’ Diver features a textured dial design inspired by the richly biodiverse sea around Japan, with its strong currents around the unique shape of the archipelago. ‘The Nature of Time’ theme features prominently in Grand Seiko watch designs – a Japanese spirituality in which each moment is a unique expression unveiled through light and shadow. The watchmakers’ pride in their surroundings is represented from engineering watch movements to creating dials reflecting the beauty of Japanese nature. The ‘Evolution 9’ style of this sports timepiece is based around the evolution of the brand’s design principles of creating wearable, legible and desirable timepieces with flat two-dimensional, wide surfaces and distortion-free mirror finishing. Firstly E9 is an “evolution in aesthetics” – the design expresses infinite gradations between light and shadow, achieved with flat Zaratsu polished surfaces combined with hairline finishing.