Description
Awake, the Lyon-based French–Vietnamese brand that has quietly become one of the most credible Métiers d'Art names at the sub-EUR-3,000 tier, has reworked its flagship lacquer collection for 2026. The new Sơn Mài – Guilloché Main line — the suffix literally means "hand-guilloché" in French — pairs rose-engine-cut guilloché patterns with traditional Vietnamese Sơn Mài lacquer in three brand-new dial executions, downsized into a more wearable 38 mm × 11.5 mm case.
The trio comprises Alba in bright orange over a spiral guilloché evoking heat-haze, Sunset in deep aubergine purple over a drapé-moiré straight-line pattern that ripples like fabric, and Borealis in emerald green over a wavy-curtain guilloché inspired by the aurora. Each reference is limited to 200 pieces, priced at EUR 2,650, with the first 50 of each shipping in June 2026 and the remainder following in September.
Design
The headline change is dimensional. Awake has dropped the Sơn Mài case from 39 mm × 11.8 mm to 38 mm × 11.5 mm — small numerically, transformative on the wrist for a watch already considered borderline by the new Watches & Wonders 2026 consensus on dial sizing. The case mixes brushed and polished surfaces in the brand's now-familiar style, with a double-domed sapphire crystal carrying internal AR coating, a sapphire exhibition case-back, a screw-down crown, and 50 m water resistance — enough for daily wear, not a pretend dive watch.
The real story is the dials. Each is built on a sterling-silver base, then hand-guilloché on a rose engine at a Geneva specialist atelier, then sent to Vietnam where it receives multiple layers of Sơn Mài lacquer — a centuries-old Vietnamese decorative craft that demands repeated coating, drying, and hand-polishing cycles over weeks. The lacquer sits atop the guilloché and amplifies it: Alba's orange shimmers like heat over asphalt, Sunset's purple ripples like watered silk, and Borealis's green undulates like the actual aurora. Applied polished-steel indices and dauphine hands keep the centre of the dial graphic and legible; a beaded sub-seconds ring sits at 6 o'clock.
Specifications
- References: Sơn Mài – Guilloché Main Alba (orange), Sunset (purple), Borealis (green)
- Case diameter: 38 mm
- Case thickness: 11.5 mm
- Case material: stainless steel, mixed brushed and polished finishing
- Crystal: double-domed sapphire with internal anti-reflective coating
- Caseback: sapphire exhibition
- Water resistance: 50 m
- Crown: screw-down
- Dial base: sterling silver, rose-engine guilloché, then hand-coated Vietnamese Sơn Mài lacquer
- Dial patterns: spiral (Alba), drapé-moiré straight-line (Sunset), wavy-curtain aurora (Borealis)
- Hands: dauphine in polished steel
- Movement: La Joux-Perret G101 — Swiss automatic
- Complications: hours, minutes, sub-seconds at 6
- Frequency: 28,800 vph (4 Hz)
- Power reserve: ~68 hours
- Winding: automatic, with tungsten rotor (Côtes de Genève striping visible through caseback)
- Strap: calf leather with colour-matched stitching and quick-release spring bars; polished steel pin buckle
- Limited edition: 200 pieces per reference (600 total)
- Price: EUR 2,650
- Availability: direct from awakewatches.com and selected distributors; first 50 of each ship June 2026, remainder from September
What's Exciting
Two things make this release matter. First, the combination. Putting French-Swiss rose-engine guilloché underneath Vietnamese Sơn Mài lacquer in a single dial is genuinely uncommon — the technical conversation usually stops at one craft or the other, not both. The Sunset's drapé-moiré pattern is the standout: normally seen on Vacheron Métiers d'Art dials at fifty times the price, here it's married to a deep purple Sơn Mài lacquer that reads completely differently across light conditions. Second, the value. EUR 2,650 buys you a 4 Hz Swiss automatic with a 68 h reserve and a tungsten rotor — La Joux-Perret's G101 is a serious base movement — under a Métiers-d'Art dial that took weeks of hand-work. This is the price point at which most annual-calendar Sellitas live. Awake is undercutting the Métiers d'Art segment by an order of magnitude.
The 38 mm case downsize is also exactly the right response to the broader Watches & Wonders 2026 trend, where the new consensus on men's dress watches has settled between 36 mm and 39 mm. Awake's previous 39 mm Sơn Mài was on the cusp; 38 mm × 11.5 mm puts the new line firmly into modern dress-watch wearability without losing presence.
History
Awake was founded in Lyon, France in 2018 by Frédéric Gerschel as an environmentally-led mechanical watch brand using recycled steel, recycled plastic from ocean clean-ups, and case finishing performed in France. The brand built its early reputation on accessible, sub-EUR-1,000 quartz and Miyota-powered pieces, but quietly began an ambition climb up-market in 2021 with the launch of the Sơn Mài line — a creative collaboration with Vietnamese artisans practising a centuries-old lacquer art that historically decorated furniture, religious objects, and imperial-court regalia. Sơn Mài's defining characteristic is its many-layered, deeply hand-polished surface: a Sơn Mài dial is built up from sometimes a dozen or more layers, each individually applied, dried, and ground back to flatness before the next is added.
The Guilloché Main line takes that craft a step further by adding rose-engine guilloché beneath the lacquer, producing the optical "movement" inside the dial that makes the Alba shimmer and the Borealis ripple. The case downsizing on the Main lineup also brings Awake into line with the broader 2026 watch-industry trend toward smaller diameters — a trend Monochrome's Watches & Wonders 2026 editorial recap identified as the year's most consistent shift.
