If only someone would know how many watch brands are in existence today, and how many existed and will exist, they have to be in the tens of thousands. For centuries, watchmakers, engineers, craftsmen and craftswomen (of course) in numerous countries have contributed something unique to the industry. From inventing new escapements and case technologies to setting gems within bezels, concocting new shades of incredible colors, and transferring age-old métiers d’arts (French for high-end “crafts”) in leatherworks, painting, enameling, and guilloché to watchmaking. These incredible mechanical timekeeping devices, whether they came in the form of pocket-bound, chain-linked devices or wrist-worn ones, have served as the canvases for some of the most exquisite artistic techniques mankind has ever come up with. And should you have an interest outside utilitarian timepieces, as we all should sometimes, then today you’re going to get your eyes blown wide open by a unique, mesmerizing, and intense horological experience. 

No, not a 10,000-meter diver nor an integrated-bracelet sports watch whose dial is made of a UFO’s fuselage. No, something rather different however as unique as those could be. 

The brand which will provide this rather singular affair is Awake, a French house of horology run by Lilian Thibault (Founder,) Thibault Sacre (Director of Operations) and Benjamin Brossard Devidal (Head of Innovation & Manufacturing,) respectively an avid collector and business manager, an industry veteran, and a micromechanics engineer. Three different profiles, three different approaches to making leaps in the industry which perfectly encapsulate what makes Awake unique amongst the tens of thousands of brands that exist today: Awake is about making various paths intercross through their horological creations, artisans and artists who each are masters of their crafts, wherever centuries-old traditions emanate from, all being singular, complex, and perhaps on their path to extinction should it not be for bold entrepreneurs like the three aforementioned individuals. Today is our first time taking a look at Awake and its collections, and what better way to start than with the Son Mài - Guilloché Main “Borealis.”

Specifications 

This article wouldn’t be a Mainspring review should the Son Mài - Guilloché Main “Borealis” not be a proper timepiece, read: not only a magnificent artistic creation but also a solid timekeeping device meant to be worn everyday, as we’re about to see. Lilian’s vision for Awake was to create a brand whose collections make people stop in their tracks, both literally whenever someone would spot someone else wearing an Awake timepiece on the street or a watch event, and also figuratively, wondering how, on Genta’s Good Green Earth, nobody thought about making this before—whatever this is that Awake came up with. Prompting strangers and familiar faces to stop and take a moment to admire, analyze, and wander again at an Awake timepiece is also the brand’s mission: to celebrate the slowing down of our paces and revere the great amount of time it takes to create such exceptional timepieces—to come up with a concept, find the right artisans, manage the multiple stages of production and assembly, and a few international travels in the process. 

For there are two ways to look at the Son Mài - Guilloché Main “Borealis”: (1) as a masterpiece of human creativity and artisanship; (2) as an everyday wear timepiece you should not be afraid to actually sport to go about your daily life. Again, the latter is the reason why I wanted so badly to write about Awake—even though, of course, I’m quite mesmerized by the dial—because there would be no point to write about a pretty face printed on a cereal box, should this analogy make an actual sense within our horological contexts. So before we get deep and deeper into the dial, let’s talk about those good old specifications which are an integral part of the horological experience Awake is inviting you to have: starting with what is simple, the case made of 316L stainless steel and measuring 38mm in diameter, 44.75mm lug-to-lug, 11.50mm with the crystal (10mm without it,) and a 20mm lug width. These are the perfect dimensions for an ideal wrist clocking in at 6.50”/16.5cm, as the Son Mài commands a strong, modern, albeit restrained wrist presence.

And the case is endowed with a fine alternation of satin-brushed and polished surface treatments which perfectly embrace the guilloché dial. On its right flank there is a 6.3mm push/pull crown graced by an intense knurling to make it easy to wind the movement and set the time. The crown is paired with a screw-down see-through sapphire case-back for a more than reasonable 100 meters of water resistance, enough indeed for everyday wear and a bit more. Above the masterpiece that is the dial we find a slightly domed sapphire crystal complemented with several layers of clear anti-reflective coating so that the view of the craft will forever remain unobstructed. Moreover, inside the Son Mài beats a LaJoux-Perret G101 caliber, a now popular movement which ticks at 4Hz and comes with a whopping 68 hours of power reserve, which is pretty to look at through the wide sapphire opening on the back of the case. To complete this good package, Awake sources its straps from French strap-maker Jean-Rousseau and chose Fitwell to complete said package. 

Design 

I would dare coming back to the earlier analogy—of the pretty face printed on a cereal box—however stupid it might have been, to reinforce something important about this watch: where many brands solely focus on sourcing beautiful dials, whether they come with an actual or printed guilloché pattern, exotic mineral materials from a meteorite, or one of Earth’s numerous naturally-occuring precious stones many brands have been dipping their toes into lately, Awake not only did get an amazing dial made to its very own specifications but also, as we saw above, sourced a good movement, a good case, a good strap and a good buckle. These little things do matter for some of us and go a long way in fitting the dial within a specific context, and later on a price tag. And beyond—and besides all of this—there is another special something Awake did we haven’t discussed before because it sits within both the specifications and design sections: what Awake describes as its “coiffe” luminous signature, where segments of BGW9 are affixed below the hands and markers. 

And this is perhaps where we should begin our exploration of the dial, maybe surprisingly so: the whole luminous apparatus of the Son Mài - Guilloché Main “Borealis” is mind-blowing and a first in horology, as far as my knowledge of it goes. Below the polished and faceted hour markers, themselves deserving a whole article, bullet-shaped lume blocks are sandwiched between the markers and dial and appear to be floating above the latter, not merely applied onto it, as if remaining in place by way of an invisible force field. For the hour and minute hands, the spectacle is as special: lume segments, shaped exactly like they are, are attached to their underside but also run around the pinion, meaning that the entirety of both hands is lumed. The nighttime show is as special as the latest Christopher Nolan’s movie is, which ought to be watched in an iMax theatre, as reading the time at night is as easy as it is to do so during the day. Yet again this in itself, even before actually talking about the ideal, exemplifies Awake’s drive to make you pause and cry. 

Studying the lume of the Son Mài was a bit of a prime for what follows. And what is coming is the intersection of three exceptionally different worlds: that of Lilian, Thibault, and Benjamin with those of the Renzetti family, Italian experts of hand-made guilloché dials since the 19th century, and of the Vietnamese artists of Son Mài lacquer, a technique which goes back to Feudal Vietnam and was further developed in the 1930s mixing in the French know-how. The first step to creating the dial of the Son Mài - Guilloché Main “Borealis” is getting the wave-like pattern mimicking the fluidity of the aurora borealis carved out by the Renzetti family using 19th century hand-operated straight-line or rose engine machines, a time-consuming and ultra-precise process. The second step is to ship the dials to Vietnam to go through the expert hands of Son Mài lacquer artists, who apply, paint, and sand multiple layers of natural resin that come from the cây sơn tree. It is the intersection of these métiers d’arts which endow the dial with such unique richness. 

And as they ought to have done, Awake didn’t “simply” encased the beautiful dial inside a meh steel chassis, but forged one that is sporty and elegant but which doesn’t go over-the-top so as not to overshadow the lacquered guilloché dial it frames. As it were, the 38 x 47.50 x 11.50mm case is a reduced version of its previous cases which it released when the brand first introduced the Son Mài collection. What we have is this: a seemingly simple case which in reality was designed with a succession of steps and chamfers to indeed envelop the dial, put it in an ever better light than it already was, and acts as a continuation of it, in fact. From the top down we find a fully polished concave bezel which slopes down towards the mid-case to a vertical stop, from which flow the tooth-shaped polished markers on the dial. The mid-case is horizontally brushed and complemented by a lower polished undercut running alongside its entire circumference, and more importantly, arched dual-finished lugs which have an extra chamfer, making them step out from the case. 

I do hope the photos sparkled within this article do the case and dial some kind of justice, especially those lugs which bring back virtual memories of “cornes de vache” ones which appeared on the cases of the most luxurious of maisons in the 1950s and which came across as living a life of their own attached to cases but not so in reality. This is the kind of design virtuosity I’m glad Awake came up with to gift the lacquered guilloché dial a worthy steel companion. 

The Heart of the Matter

Awake is the type of brand which seems to have exploded out-of-a-sudden out-of-nowhere and whom everybody seems to be talking about—but for once for a good reason. There are many micro or independent or luxurious houses of horology about which all journalists, all YouTubers, and all influencers flood your brain with information, and more often than not, for questionable or downright lousy reasons. Look, X brand made the first watch to be used on Mars, so cool! said such or such watch expert at a private viewing event in New York City, even though many scientists agree we will never make it there. Check this out, this new movement comes with 52 patents and is made out of 654 parts, just wow! says the enthusiast looking at the watch sitting on a gold cushion inside an exhibition case at Watches & Wonders. I rarely become interested in brands or watches everybody creates content about as the generated hype is rarely backed by something either truly noteworthy, or sensical, or attainable. But photos of Awake’s Son Mài’s collections kept being pushed to my screen, articles making the front-page of my favorite online publications. 

And I met Lilian and Thibault a few times and they were frankly nice which further sweetened the deal for me. The images, the positive feedback, the pure beauty of the Son Mài’s lacquered dials, and the brand’s folks being more approachable than your average French person pushed me over the edge. So I asked to review one. And so I kept harassing them, they finally gave in and sent me the Son Mài - Guilloché Main “Borealis”, which is hands-down one of the most exquisite timepiece my utilitarian horological nerdy self has ever touched and my brain been given the opportunity to type many words about. So at the heart of the matter is this: this model, this collection, is most interesting and fascinating to me on account of a new golden ratio Awake reached: intercrossing two types of high-end métiers d’arts from two distant parts of the world inside a well-designed, sized, and finished modern case, complemented by a singular way of doing lume, and finished with what I would consider to be a reasonable price when all of the above is dutyfully considered: 3,180€/$3,696 USD VAT included. That is actual cheap change. 

Conclusion 

So the hype was real this time around—Awake does make exceptional timepieces which ought to be seen in the metal in order to be fully appreciated. No photos, no videos, however good they might be, can accurately translate what you ought to see with your own eyes. And the Son Mài - Guilloché Main “Borealis” is one of three members of this new collection of hand-made guilloché dials, and goes alongside the “Sunset” whose guilloché showcases a gorgeous "draped-moiré" pattern (criss-crossing lines which create something representing the undulations of ocean waves) and the “Alba” whose dial displays a helical pattern mimicking a bursting sunrise. Yep, the hype was justified and I was so glad to be able to write this review and attempt at showcasing the dial and case beauty through two-dimensional imagery. This is actually one of the rare times, if not the first, where I look at a dial not to read the time and be ok with it. 

Thanks for reading.