Yoshi Obatake

Yoshi Obatake is a Franco-Japanese independent watchmaker whose relationship to craft was formed long before he ever touched a movement. He grew up in a family where craftsmanship, creation, and manual work were constants — haute couture, tatami mat making, and shoe modelling all present in his family heritage, instilling a love of meticulous work and know-how that, in his own words, influenced him profoundly 'without me even realizing it at first.' After several years of scientific studies, Obatake felt something essential was missing — the desire to return to disciplines where you create with your hands, as he had always done as a child. He decided to take up watchmaking, earning his Diplôme des Métiers d'Art with the congratulations of the jury, then continuing his training independently, guided by invaluable advice from a handful of benevolent watchmakers willing to share their knowledge outside any formal structure. Over time, this path led him to develop Memori — a concept close to his heart, offering a new approach to the passage of time through a watch complication of his own design. He gathered the tools and began developing the project alongside his other activities, before devoting himself to it entirely, full-time, from 2022 onward. The first prototype was completed in 2025; Obatake's goal is to complete a full series of five prototypes by 2026/27.

The Memori concept is unusually philosophical for a mechanical complication, and Obatake explains its origin directly: the objects we value most often bear the imprint of a story, or of a loved one who once held them — in the case of a watch, the imprint of the person who wore it before us. Obatake wanted to make that link visible, to make it the central subject of the watch itself. The result is a complication that displays time across three radically different scales simultaneously: a 24-hour dial (chosen deliberately over the conventional 12-hour format, to offer a complete view of the day and fundamentally change how time is read); a 100-year dial, tracking years elapsed since the mechanism was first started; and an index marking the current year within that century-long span. Crucially, the watch functions like an odometer in a car — it counts the time it has actually been worn, not simply elapsed calendar time. If the watch goes unwound, its counters simply stop, preserving a precise record of use rather than continuing to run regardless of whether anyone is wearing it.

This is how, in Obatake's words, 'the link between the user and the object is memorized.' He offers several readings of what the complication can mean in a person's life: a watch passed from parent to child becomes a visible record of years worn across generations, a symbol of heritage and inheritance; given as a gift to mark a wedding, birth, or other significant event, it becomes a way of tracking the time elapsed since that precious moment; for someone pursuing a long-term goal, it offers a lifetime-scale view of how much time remains; and for someone holding themselves to a personal commitment, it becomes what Obatake calls 'a silent witness to his determination' — remembered every time the wearer winds the watch to keep the counter ticking. He describes the piece as something that can be read either as a memento mori, a reminder of an inevitable death to come, or as a tool for appreciating and making full use of the time we have left.

The watch built to carry the Memori complication was designed for durability and everyday maintainability — a piece made to be worn daily rather than treated as a fragile showpiece. Its base calibre is the Unitas 6497-1, chosen deliberately for its familiarity: it is often the very first movement a young watchmaker learns to work on, prized for its size, simplicity, reliability, and the ready availability of spare parts, still produced both by the original manufacturer and by independent watchmakers who use it as a foundation for their own creations — a pragmatic choice that prioritises long-term serviceability over novelty for its own sake. Built onto that base, the Memori complication itself comprises 62 additional parts, every one of them made in Obatake's own workshop with the sole exception of the rubies. All gear teeth are cut on a Schaublin 70, with every gear profile requiring the design and production of a custom carbide cutter specific to that part — a considerable investment of tooling for a single prototype series. All screws are hand-made. The case and certain shaped parts are machined using a combination of CNC and conventional manual machines. The finished watch runs at 18,000 vph with a minimum 46-hour power reserve, housed in a 42mm × 10mm stainless steel case, water-resistant to 3 ATM. Custom engine-turned or decorated plates are available on request, offering collectors a further layer of personalisation on top of the complication itself. Obatake describes the completed first prototype as the culmination of several years of work and learning — not just to validate that the mechanism functions, but to fully grasp the specific manufacturing difficulties involved in producing each of its 62 components by hand.