A watch is a companion worn directly on the wrist, accompanying you through your daily life. What criteria should you use to choose the best watch from the countless watches available? Even if you're not a watch enthusiast, the key point is the dial, the "face" of the watch.
Learn about the different watch dial designs
If you focus on the dial of a watch, you'll realize that there are more designs available than you might imagine.
As essential knowledge for finding your favorite watch, let's first introduce the dial decoration techniques.
Delicate and beautiful guilloche
Guilloching is a decorative technique in which regular indentations are carved into a metal dial using a manual lathe or stamping.
It began to be used on watch dials around 1650. Was it originally primarily decorative? It was later refined as a technique to improve legibility by the legendary watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet.
Traditional designs that are widely used include "Clou de Paris", which is a series of pyramidal rivets, and "Risele", which is a series of fine parallel lines.
There are also various other patterns, such as "soleil," which is a series of straight lines radiating from the center, and "flanquet," which is a series of ripples, and it is not uncommon for multiple guilloche patterns to be applied to a single dial, demonstrating the skill of each manufacturer.
A dial with a soleil design is called a soleil dial, and a Franke dial is called a Franke dial.
Elegant glossy lacquer
Lacquering is a decorative technique that involves applying paint to the dial. Lacquer dials are made by repeatedly spraying thin, even layers of colored or colorless paint and letting it dry.
By applying multiple layers of paint, the paint's resistance is increased, resulting in a glossy, moist, and elegant color.
Depending on how the lacquer is applied and polished, a three-dimensional effect and glossiness can be achieved, resulting in a texture similar to that of the enamel dial described below.
For this reason, it is often compared to watches with enamel dials, and sometimes two versions of the same model are released: a lacquer dial version and an enamel dial version.
Exquisite and valuable mother-of-pearl
Mother-of-pearl refers to a dial made from shells that produce natural or cultured pearls. It is sometimes abbreviated to MOP, mother of pearl, or simply shell.
The MOP dial is made by slicing the inside of a shiny mother-of-pearl into a thin slice, coating it, and attaching it to a metal base plate.
It shows different expressions depending on the position of the light source and the angle from which it is viewed, and by adding color, such as by painting the base plate, even more complex color tones can be achieved.
To achieve this elegant brilliance, not only is the material carefully selected, but the watchmaker must also make precise adjustments. Because mother-of-pearl, a natural gift, is used, no two finished MOP dials are exactly alike, making them highly valuable.
