Hidaka Shinichi

Hidaka Shinichi (Shinichi Hidaka) is a young, self-taught Japanese watchmaker who works as essentially a one-person operation under the name shinichi watch from a studio in Arakawa-ku, Tokyo. He describes himself with a joke, as "a comedian trying to make a watch", and the brand calls itself a "no-joke" label that does not take itself too seriously. By his own account he was once more interested in video games than in work, grew interested in design, and was then introduced to mechanical watches by a friend. He collected catalogues from local watch shops, studied makers such as Philippe Dufour, Masahiro Kikuno and Hajime Asaoka, learned how movements work through online research, taught himself CAD, and took odd jobs to pay for tools before starting to produce watches under his own name. No founding year is stated.

Each model is treated as its own concept and project, with unusual dial designs drawn from vintage watches and Japanese anime and art, combining sourced parts with handmade elements such as dials and hands. The Kanji Dial Senju, priced at about US$1,500, carries kanji numerals, and the Mikawashima Super Pink Salmon Kanji dial, a 37mm 316L steel watch with solid caseback, ETA 7001 and Tatami-pattern strap, is a renewed colour of what he calls his favourite kanji dial. The Izanagi (also listed as 01) is a 37mm, 8.4mm-thick steel watch on the ETA 7001 with an aventurine dial, and the Shimadzu Dial Silver is a 41mm manual-winding watch on a three-quarter-plate Unitas 6498 with hand-blued steel leaf hands. A 40.5mm sector-dial watch, Perpetual Breeze, was made in collaboration with the Taiwanese brand BardsWhisper, with a handmade case and dial and a Sellita SW200 with a special rotor.

Watches are sold as small made-to-order runs through the brand's online shop, with lead times of several months, and no cancellations or refunds on made-to-order pieces; most current listings are sold out. Prices on the brand's own site run from US$1,600 to US$2,200, and Grenon's of Newport, his only US retailer, lists his watches from US$1,700 to US$2,400. No production figures are published.