Urushi Series SHIBO-URUSHI “DIVIDO ~Golden Flux” Bracelet Model [VM14-M01KA3-SSB]

Gold caught mid-spread. MINASE describes the artwork on its Urushi Series shibo-urushi dial “DIVIDO ~Golden Flux” as gold swaying and spreading across strained shibo-urushi, and the dial holds that moment of movement still.

Shibo-urushi is the textural half of MINASE's lacquer work. Urushi is thickened with egg white until it sets in a deliberately irregular relief; different colored lacquers and nacre are then applied and the surface is ground back flat, so the pattern surfaces out of the strata instead of being painted onto them. Where maki-e renders a subject, this renders a landscape nobody planned, and every dial in the JAPAN ART COLLECTION is made by hand, one at a time.

The DIVIDO gives it an unusual stage. The case-in-case construction sets a near-circular inner case within a square outer form, a combination MINASE likens to the Earth floating in space, with four lugs that ride above the case in a partition structure. Stainless steel, 40.6 mm square and 11 mm thick with the sapphire, about 134 g on the MORE bracelet, which disassembles down to its links for re-polishing. Self-winding KT7002, Swiss ETA 2892-A2 / Sellita SW300 base, date, 5 atm.

Warm on a steel bracelet, and never quite the same color twice.

Perfect for: gold-toned lacquer dials, rebuildable steel bracelets, collectors of abstract Japanese craft.