Kanazawa artist Terumasa Ikeda saw a planetary system in the TYPE 9’s orbital display, and built a dial of urushi lacquer and mother-of-pearl around it.
Ressence today introduces the TYPE 9 IKE, limited to 8 pieces. The brand calls it a composition made for its moving dial, not an artwork applied to a watch.
Ikeda works in the Japanese techniques of urushi lacquer and raden, or mother-of-pearl inlay, with a science-fiction eye, and built this dial around the idea of heliocentrism. The hardest part, he says, was fixing flat, brittle raden to the curved dial: the shell was soaked and bent on rubber sheets, little by little. The case, bezel and dial parts are black DLC-coated titanium, and his signature sits on the case back.
“Within a single watch, the past and future co-exist, almost creating a paradox,” says Ikeda. To Benoît Mintiens, Ressence’s founder, the result reads like a signal from another civilisation, beamed back from the future.
Turn the watch over, and Ikeda’s own signature is the only clue that a person, not a machine, drew every line by hand.
The Basics
Brand: Ressence
Model: TYPE 9 IKE
Diameter: 39mm
Thickness: 11mm
Case material: Polished Grade 5 titanium, DLC-coated
Dial: Grade 5 titanium with DLC coating; raden (mother-of-pearl) and Japanese urushi (black lacquer), applied by hand by Terumasa Ikeda
Water resistance: 1 ATM splash-resistance
Strap: Black shiny horse leather, 20/18mm; titanium ardillon buckle
Limited edition: 8 pieces
The Movement
Calibre: Patented ROCS 9 module (Ressence Orbital Convex System), driven by the minute axle of a customised automatic base calibre
Functions: Hours, minutes
Winding: Self-winding; manual winding over 12°; set-up via case back
Power reserve: 36 hours
Frequency: 28,800 vibrations per hour
Jewels: 31
Images courtesy of Ressence.