This Mesmerizing Sports Watch Looks Like the Endgame for the Industry’s Most Stubborn Trend

When Atelier Wen launched as a brand back in 2018, the brand’s stated goal was to raise the bar for Chinese watchmaking.

But at this point, it seems more like Atelier Wen is raising the bar for all of watchmaking — Chinese or not.

Last year, Atelier Wen launched its halo piece: the Inflection. A follow-up to the brand’s flagship sports watch, the Perception, the Inflection broke ground as the first serially produced full tantalum bracelet watch in the world (and earned a spot in our GP100 roundup last year).

Now, Atelier Wen is back at it with an impressive take on the white-hot stone dial trend that’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.

For pietersite’s sake

Atelier Wen

Atelier Wen’s latest watch is its second annual limited-edition Millésime release, with the first being a titanium version of the Perception that I previously reviewed here. The new Millésime, which is dubbed Millésime 2025 despite its release occurring in 2026, is once again a Perception, this time returning to the model’s original 904L stainless steel case and bracelet.

What’s new about the Millésime 2025 Perception, called Perception Xuán, is the dial.

The Perception is the watch that put Atelier Wen on the map. And while there’s a lot to like about the watch — from its attractive case and integrated bracelet design to its raised “stone lion” exhibition caseback — the main draw of the Perception was always its hand-guilloché dial, a rare work of art available at a bargain compared to other examples on the market.

But there’s no guilloché to be found on the Perception Xuán. Instead, the watch opts for a natural stone dial. Now, when I first heard this, I began to roll my eyes a bit. Stone dials are currently everywhere in the watch industry, and despite their natural beauty, their overuse over the past two years is causing them to become stale.

Atelier Wen

But I should’ve had more faith in Atelier Wen, as this is no average stone dial. Instead of going with one of the usual material subjects, the brand chose pietersite, a rare stone found mainly in Namibia and China that’s recognized for its mesmerizing, swirling patterns.

Now, a couple of other watch brands have featured pietersite dials before, namely Baltic and Sartory Billard. But both of those examples look more like your typical stone dials, almost appearing like agate in the case of the Baltic and blue tiger’s eye on the Sartory Billard.

The stone used on the Perception Xuán looks decidedly more special. It’s a mesmerizing array of blue, white and black swirls, and it looks so dynamic that I keep expecting it to move while looking at it. The dial owes its beauty to Atelier Wen’s obsessive pickiness, as the brand sought examples of the stone that resembled traditional Chinese mountain-water landscape gardens, or shānshuǐ pénjǐng.

Atelier Wen

“The selection of suitable slabs of raw pietersite was a necessarily painstaking process due to the need for the selected stones to reflect the inspirational aesthetic of the shānshuǐ pénjǐng, since some of the natural inclusions resulted in color combinations and/or distributions that were less suited,” the brand said in a statement.

Outside of the head-turning dial, the Xuán has the same specs as the regular production steel Perception. That means a 40mm x 9.4mm case, 100m of water resistance with a screw-down crown, a patent-pending push-button microadjustable clasp, a lumed Chinese-pattern chapter ring, and a Dandong Peacock Cal. SL1588A automatic movement that’s partially visible behind a display caseback featuring a hammered finish and raised stone lion motif featuring a sapphire crystal mouth.

Pricing and availability

Atelier Wen cut its teeth as a value-driven watch brand, but the brand has been steadily going upmarket, peaking with the $30,000 Inflection last year. Thankfully, the Perception Xuán marks a return to form for the brand, coming in at a decidedly more palatable price of $3,600.

As a Millésime release, the Perception Xuán is a limited edition in that it will only be available this year. The first batch of 225 watches is available to order now, with deliveries to take place in Q2 of this year. Subsequent orders will be part of a second batch that will go out in Q4, 2026.

Atelier Wen

Atelier Wen Perception Xuán

Specs

Case Size	40mm
Movement	Dandong Peacock Cal. SL1588A automatic
Water Resistance	100m

• $3,600 at Atelier Wen

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