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What Is Beauty?
A journey with the special Yoshino Blossom Signature
Published by: Fahmi Ebrahim
Nov 25, 2024
“Hana wa sakuragi, hito wa bushi“
花は桜木人は武士
"The [best] blossom is the cherry blossom; the [best] man is the warrior"
In the natural world, the thing that the eyes of its beholders often miss is, of course, that beauty has a purpose. So caught up are we in the lines and curves and angles and flow, and so soaked in the joy or sorrow or pain, that we bypass the intent of what we are admiring.
Evolution is beautiful that way.
It lets the octopuses change not only their coloring, but also the texture of their skin to match ambient rocks and corals to hide from predators. The golden tortoise beetle turns from gold to bright red when it meets a willing mate. The Misumenoides Formosipes (crab spiders to you and I) will wait patiently from between 10-25 days to change from white to yellow, and only then does it attack its unsuspecting prey.
To hide, to mate and to eat.
The Sakura cherry blossom evolved to attract pollinators that are visual.
To be carried away.
When I first looked, nay, marveled at the dial of the Hitori Yoshino Blossom, I didn’t know any of this. I didn’t know, for example, that there’s a cherry tree in Japan around 2000 years old.
And that’s when you do a double-take, because you realize that in the cold angular world of modern watch design, there is a place for this kind of softness, a dial that is modeled after something that can fall upon you like a feather, something that decomposes with the change of seasons.
Usually, my reviews are truncated into sections: dials and hands and movements et al.
Here, though, I won’t. I will weave in and out, without a map, because you can’t, shouldn’t surgically analyze a watch such as this. But fear not, there’s precision aplenty, but that is all in good time.
The Sakura is part of the Yoshino line, Gnomon Watches’ in-house brand that is inspired by Japanese design language. I will not dwell too long on this, but if you have looked at any of the Yoshino line you will know that they are heavily inspired by Grand Seiko. There is nothing to hide, and nothing to be concerned about. Many collectors look at homage watches as either a guilty pleasure or a weapon they can use to put down other collectors. Me? I love them. I always have. I have owned a Rolex Explorer 16570 Polar because I bought a homage off AliExpress. Before I splashed the cash, I wanted to know if a white dial GMT is something I would enjoy wearing. I know many of us love the 7S26-driven Seiko SNXS series because they remind us of the Datejust, and Seiko has made a killing off them, just like they have from the Reference SWR083P, which is pound-for-pound the best Tank homage on a budget.
Consider this too, the Rolex proudly calls the Daytona the Cosmograph in spite of it never being NASA certified, and the Moonwatch is called a Speedmaster because Omega intended for it to be a track watch, but it ended up in space.
Watches, you see, don’t make sense. What makes sense is how you make sense of it.
So when I look at the Yoshino line I don’t see it as cheeky. The Grand Seiko inspiration is there for all to see and enjoy. Hitori has not hidden it. The word homage, after all, originates from the feudal ceremony by which a man acknowledged himself the vassal of a lord. If the Lord here is Toro Tanaka’s sensuous, practical and breathtakingly simple “grammar of design”, then Hitori has executed its role as that philosophy’s loyally subservient vassal.
Consider, for example, the painstaking finishing on the case. And I don’t mean “for the price point”. I mean that in the context of any 316L Stainless Steel watch. But it’s not Zuratsu I hear you say, to which I reply, but my friend, after a few months of wear not even Zuratsu is Zuratsu - I speak from experience. Much like the SBGA413G (aka The Shunbun), the case is a modern reinterpretation of the celebrated 62GS from 1967.
The 62GS case is a genuine heart-melter, chock full of angles that play hide-and-seek with the light, a sort of design language that is quietly confident about its geometric (and timekeeping!) superiority over its Swiss contemporaries. It never needed to shout because horological aesthetes of half a century ago didn’t flinch at a 36.5mm diameter.
Tastes have changed with the time, and the Grand Seiko’s, and consequently Hitori’s, execution of the reinterpretation of the 62GS gives it a broader, more muscular look. To accommodate this greater angularity, the Yoshino line comes in at 39.6mm wide and 46.8mm lug-to-lug, which means this: for almost all men out there, and women who like to wear a larger timepiece, it is perfect.
The extra metal is not slept on. Put it this way, watches like the Yoshino are an excellent gateway to understanding why watchmakers use alternating polishing and brushing and why it is a far more engaging approach than a polish-only approach. The tops of the lugs feature a vertically stroked satin finish, a feature that is non-negotiable for any modern watch with sport aspirations.
As that falls away to the midcase, there is a sweeping, broad, transitional and distortion-free high-polish bevel that takes us to the midcase, which features a contrasting satin finish.
Matte, shiny, matte, Light goes in, comes out and goes back in again, and the whole side profile looks thinner for it.
There are some brands - which I won’t name here - who are experts at amazing case detail but fall flat on the dial. Since Hitori has targeted the highest hanging fruit in Grand Seiko, there is no risk of it here.
The dial texture is not hand finished. Whisper it quietly, but neither are Grand Seiko pattern dials. Who made it and how is less the point when the net effect is so gentle. When I looked at images online, I thought the pink would be, well, pinker.
In truth, and thankfully, it presents as pale and gentle. If you are a man and wore this with a business shirt and tie, it would confirm to all around you how secure you are in your masculinity. And collectors of the female persuasion will feel terrifically at home here.
The hands, well, to talk about them I would like to make a callback to the Medieval-era haiku at the top of this piece, specifically, the second part: the [best] man is the warrior.
If the dial provides a genteel backdrop, these hands on the foreground are anything but. In the metaphor of the thousand year old cherry blossom tree that has witnessed a hundred samurai rituals, they are the swords. Satin-brushed across their top surfaces, and polished on their faceted sides, they are precise, and the fully graduated suitably pale pink chapter ring they point toward are perfectly aligned to the case’s cardinal points. The hour batons get the same synergistic treatment: satin tops with mirror polished bevelling, with a double helping at the twelve.
After all the detailed work Hitori has put in, one wouldn’t expect them to leave the crown unsigned, and they don’t. Featuring the first Hiagana character of its name which translates to one man, alone it is precisely knurled.
And top it all off, Hitori, you might argue has one-upped the brand it is paying respect to. The bracelet is top notch. And before I get to that, let’s focus on the clasp for a second. It is signed with the full Hitori name and has not three, not four micro-adjusts but (count ‘em) six. The drilled holes are a massive bonus, and makes swapping to a color coordinated leather or rubber strap a lot easier. After all, it does have 100m water resistance, so watersport will not be an issue.
The bracelet itself has solid end links, and it is adjusted using the less premium but more democratic pin-and-collar system. Hitori have mirror polished the sides, and fortunately have not fallen into the trap of a fully polished midlink. In fact, the execution of the midlink needs referring to, with a polished section either side of its brushed middle.
Again, polished, brushed and a sliver of polish. Light goes in and out.
You will note that up to this point I have not invoked the Yoshino's price point. That’s because to me it transcends that. For it exists as a calling card to two things. One, to what modern machining and dedicated artisanship can create. And two, to the considered choices (the DNA-centric Seiko NH35 movement, for example) that originate from a loving scholarship of Japanese watchmaking through the ages.
The Hitori Yoshino may not be finished at a watchmaking studio next to a mountain, but it doesn’t have to be. It is a thing of beauty with a singular purpose: love.
花は桜木人は武士
"The [best] blossom is the cherry blossom; the [best] man is the warrior"
In the natural world, the thing that the eyes of its beholders often miss is, of course, that beauty has a purpose. So caught up are we in the lines and curves and angles and flow, and so soaked in the joy or sorrow or pain, that we bypass the intent of what we are admiring.
Evolution is beautiful that way.
It lets the octopuses change not only their coloring, but also the texture of their skin to match ambient rocks and corals to hide from predators. The golden tortoise beetle turns from gold to bright red when it meets a willing mate. The Misumenoides Formosipes (crab spiders to you and I) will wait patiently from between 10-25 days to change from white to yellow, and only then does it attack its unsuspecting prey.
To hide, to mate and to eat.
The Sakura cherry blossom evolved to attract pollinators that are visual.
To be carried away.
When I first looked, nay, marveled at the dial of the Hitori Yoshino Blossom, I didn’t know any of this. I didn’t know, for example, that there’s a cherry tree in Japan around 2000 years old.
And that’s when you do a double-take, because you realize that in the cold angular world of modern watch design, there is a place for this kind of softness, a dial that is modeled after something that can fall upon you like a feather, something that decomposes with the change of seasons.
Usually, my reviews are truncated into sections: dials and hands and movements et al.
Here, though, I won’t. I will weave in and out, without a map, because you can’t, shouldn’t surgically analyze a watch such as this. But fear not, there’s precision aplenty, but that is all in good time.
The Sakura is part of the Yoshino line, Gnomon Watches’ in-house brand that is inspired by Japanese design language. I will not dwell too long on this, but if you have looked at any of the Yoshino line you will know that they are heavily inspired by Grand Seiko. There is nothing to hide, and nothing to be concerned about. Many collectors look at homage watches as either a guilty pleasure or a weapon they can use to put down other collectors. Me? I love them. I always have. I have owned a Rolex Explorer 16570 Polar because I bought a homage off AliExpress. Before I splashed the cash, I wanted to know if a white dial GMT is something I would enjoy wearing. I know many of us love the 7S26-driven Seiko SNXS series because they remind us of the Datejust, and Seiko has made a killing off them, just like they have from the Reference SWR083P, which is pound-for-pound the best Tank homage on a budget.
Consider this too, the Rolex proudly calls the Daytona the Cosmograph in spite of it never being NASA certified, and the Moonwatch is called a Speedmaster because Omega intended for it to be a track watch, but it ended up in space.
Watches, you see, don’t make sense. What makes sense is how you make sense of it.
So when I look at the Yoshino line I don’t see it as cheeky. The Grand Seiko inspiration is there for all to see and enjoy. Hitori has not hidden it. The word homage, after all, originates from the feudal ceremony by which a man acknowledged himself the vassal of a lord. If the Lord here is Toro Tanaka’s sensuous, practical and breathtakingly simple “grammar of design”, then Hitori has executed its role as that philosophy’s loyally subservient vassal.
Consider, for example, the painstaking finishing on the case. And I don’t mean “for the price point”. I mean that in the context of any 316L Stainless Steel watch. But it’s not Zuratsu I hear you say, to which I reply, but my friend, after a few months of wear not even Zuratsu is Zuratsu - I speak from experience. Much like the SBGA413G (aka The Shunbun), the case is a modern reinterpretation of the celebrated 62GS from 1967.
The 62GS case is a genuine heart-melter, chock full of angles that play hide-and-seek with the light, a sort of design language that is quietly confident about its geometric (and timekeeping!) superiority over its Swiss contemporaries. It never needed to shout because horological aesthetes of half a century ago didn’t flinch at a 36.5mm diameter.
Tastes have changed with the time, and the Grand Seiko’s, and consequently Hitori’s, execution of the reinterpretation of the 62GS gives it a broader, more muscular look. To accommodate this greater angularity, the Yoshino line comes in at 39.6mm wide and 46.8mm lug-to-lug, which means this: for almost all men out there, and women who like to wear a larger timepiece, it is perfect.
The extra metal is not slept on. Put it this way, watches like the Yoshino are an excellent gateway to understanding why watchmakers use alternating polishing and brushing and why it is a far more engaging approach than a polish-only approach. The tops of the lugs feature a vertically stroked satin finish, a feature that is non-negotiable for any modern watch with sport aspirations.
As that falls away to the midcase, there is a sweeping, broad, transitional and distortion-free high-polish bevel that takes us to the midcase, which features a contrasting satin finish.
Matte, shiny, matte, Light goes in, comes out and goes back in again, and the whole side profile looks thinner for it.
There are some brands - which I won’t name here - who are experts at amazing case detail but fall flat on the dial. Since Hitori has targeted the highest hanging fruit in Grand Seiko, there is no risk of it here.
The dial texture is not hand finished. Whisper it quietly, but neither are Grand Seiko pattern dials. Who made it and how is less the point when the net effect is so gentle. When I looked at images online, I thought the pink would be, well, pinker.
In truth, and thankfully, it presents as pale and gentle. If you are a man and wore this with a business shirt and tie, it would confirm to all around you how secure you are in your masculinity. And collectors of the female persuasion will feel terrifically at home here.
The hands, well, to talk about them I would like to make a callback to the Medieval-era haiku at the top of this piece, specifically, the second part: the [best] man is the warrior.
If the dial provides a genteel backdrop, these hands on the foreground are anything but. In the metaphor of the thousand year old cherry blossom tree that has witnessed a hundred samurai rituals, they are the swords. Satin-brushed across their top surfaces, and polished on their faceted sides, they are precise, and the fully graduated suitably pale pink chapter ring they point toward are perfectly aligned to the case’s cardinal points. The hour batons get the same synergistic treatment: satin tops with mirror polished bevelling, with a double helping at the twelve.
After all the detailed work Hitori has put in, one wouldn’t expect them to leave the crown unsigned, and they don’t. Featuring the first Hiagana character of its name which translates to one man, alone it is precisely knurled.
And top it all off, Hitori, you might argue has one-upped the brand it is paying respect to. The bracelet is top notch. And before I get to that, let’s focus on the clasp for a second. It is signed with the full Hitori name and has not three, not four micro-adjusts but (count ‘em) six. The drilled holes are a massive bonus, and makes swapping to a color coordinated leather or rubber strap a lot easier. After all, it does have 100m water resistance, so watersport will not be an issue.
The bracelet itself has solid end links, and it is adjusted using the less premium but more democratic pin-and-collar system. Hitori have mirror polished the sides, and fortunately have not fallen into the trap of a fully polished midlink. In fact, the execution of the midlink needs referring to, with a polished section either side of its brushed middle.
Again, polished, brushed and a sliver of polish. Light goes in and out.
You will note that up to this point I have not invoked the Yoshino's price point. That’s because to me it transcends that. For it exists as a calling card to two things. One, to what modern machining and dedicated artisanship can create. And two, to the considered choices (the DNA-centric Seiko NH35 movement, for example) that originate from a loving scholarship of Japanese watchmaking through the ages.
The Hitori Yoshino may not be finished at a watchmaking studio next to a mountain, but it doesn’t have to be. It is a thing of beauty with a singular purpose: love.
