An Upstart Japanese Watch Brand Drops the Year’s Most Stunning Dial

It was just last week when acclaimed independent Japanese brand Naoya Hida & Co. dropped its 2026 lineup, which included the brand’s first porcelain dial, its first-ever chronograph and a 31mm dress watch powered by a brand-new movement.

It was a lot to digest, but as it turned out, Naoya Hida had one more watch to reveal.

And it might be the most impressive of them all.

Elliot Hammer

Birds of a feather

Naoya Hida and The Armoury go back a ways. The young Japanese brand debuted its first watch in 2019, and just three years later, it launched its first collab with the New York-and-Hong Kong-based menswear retailer.

Now, the two brands are back with their third collaboration, and it’s, well, kind of insane. The “Floating Feathers” is based on Naoya Hida’s 1960s-inspired Type 4 and is a 36mm dress watch in 904L stainless steel features beautiful finishing and gorgeous lyre lugs.

It also boasts a decadent hand-stitched charcoal gray calf strap from Jean Rousseau, and a manually wound Cal. 3020CS Naoya Hida movement with a custom-designed click and click spring for a supremely satisfying winding experience.

Elliot Hammer

That’s all well and good, but what really sets the Floating Feathers apart is its dial.

It’s made of Argentium silver, a silver alloy that’s especially resistant to tarnishing. The dial features a motif of three floating bird feathers, and while their lifelike appearance suggests they must be painted, they’re actually engraved into the dial by Naoya Hida’s master engraver, Keisuke Kano.

The surface of the dial is bead-blasted, which allows the exposed engraved parts of the silver to really shine (no pun intended). Every individual barb of the feathers is meticulously hand-engraved, resulting in a level of near-microscopic detail that is, quite frankly, mind-blowing.

Elliot Hammer

The concept was conceived by The Armoury co-founder Mark Cho and designer Elliot Hammer, who were inspired by mid-century Cloisonné watch dials depicting birds. Instead of going for a full-on bird portrait, the pair settled on the less common imagery of feathers.

“Whilst in Japan, I appreciated the attention to space and timelessness,” Hammer said in the watch’s press release. “In the
Floating Feathers, there is a logic: if there are feathers, there must have also once been a bird.”

The feathers are the hypnotic star of the show here, but they’re hardly the only impressive thing about the dial. Both brands’ names are engraved via an ultra-precision micro-milling machine, the faceted hour and minute hands are made of hand-polished yellow gold, the minute hand with its “caviar spoon” counterweight is in heat-blued steel and the hour markers are solid 18k gold globes that are both polished and set into the dial by hand.

Naoya Hida

Availability and pricing

Like all Naoya Hida models, the Floating Feathers is both very expensive and very, very rare. What do you expect from a brand that largely handcrafts its watches and only produces 100 or so in a given year?

The Floating Feathers is priced at $33,000 and is available exclusively at The Armoury. The watch is only available to purchase via application, which can be filled out either in person at The Armoury’s New York store or online at its website between May 17 and 20. Just 10 examples will be produced this year, with deliveries taking place in 2027.

Naoya Hida

Naoya Hida x The Armoury Floating Feathers

Specs

Case Size	36mm
Movement	Naoya Hida Cal. 3020CS manual-wind
Water Resistance	50m

• $33,000 at The Armoury

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