The year 1960 saw the Japanese brand Grand Seiko launch its first watch with the iconic lion mark. This symbol has stayed with the brand since then, reflecting their goal to become the “king of watches”. Then, in 1999 the Spring Drive movement was brought to life by the brand and marked as one of the most important developments in the recent history of luxury watchmaking.

Fast forward to 2019, the revered brand marks the 20^thanniversary of the Spring Drive with stunning new releases in their sports and dress series.

The three sports watches carry the stamp of the lion on various aspects of its design like the angular case, the claw-like shape of the lugs and the mane pattern on the dial. The oscillating weight also features an 18k gold insert of the lion symbol. Like all the Spring Drive pieces till date, the new chronographs are resistant to shock and temperature and maintain an enhanced precision of 0.5 second a day. The dial further showcases the hour, minute, seconds and chronograph hands coated with Lumibrite to enhance the legibility of time.

The cases are Zaratsu polished and the surfaces of the hands and hour markers have diamond-cut edges. The three limited editions are available in a variation of 18k rose gold and high-intensity platinum.

Moving on to the dress series, the aptly-named Elegance collection adds four new watches to its series featuring two new manual-winding Spring Drive calibres. Both of these feature the signature glide motion seconds hand and offer a one-second-a-day precision.

The Micro Artist Studio now offers its latest contribution to Grand Seiko with the new Calibre 9R02 movement with two mainsprings set in parallel within a single barrel offering an 84-hour power reserve. The platinum 950 cases house a dial featuring hour, minute hands and hour markers made of 14k white gold and the brand name, minute markers and all other markings etched on to it.

One of the watches is a limtied edition series which comes with a 'Snowflake' inspired pattern on the dial – reiterating the beauty of the Shinshu region. This edition also features “Micro Artist” engraved on an 18k gold plaque set on the lower bridge. This can be customised to the users name as per their requirements.

The other two new launches carry the new Spring Drive caliber, 9R31, which has the same dual mainspring structure as 9R02 and the same high precision rate of one second a day and delivers a power reserve of 72 hours. Available in options of 18k gold with the 'Snowflake' dial and stainless steel with a sunray dial pattern, these two Grand Seiko's are manual-winding timepieces.