One of my favorite days on the watch media calendar every year is the Naoya Hida preview day. Every spring for the last few years, watch media types make appointments at the Armoury on the Upper East Side to get a look at the upcoming Naoya Hida releases for the year. It feels like a very old fashioned way of doing things. Yes, there’s a press release sent out ahead of time, but Naoya Hida only makes one announcement like this per year – there are no mid-cycle drops or limited editions released to coincide with some later event. Members of the Naoya Hida team are present and there to explain the collection, piece by piece.
This year, Naoya Hida will produce a total of 10 models, 7 of which are new designs. We won’t go through each one here, but rather focus on the references that are completely new and those that have the most notable upgrades.
The reference that immediately caught my eye and was easily the most unexpected of the bunch is the new NH TYPE2C-2. To this point, Naoya Hida has really been defined, in my estimation, by their dial aesthetic, which prominently features elaborate hand engravings in the dial surface. It’s a very traditional and inherently ornate way to make a dial, and the execution is always top notch. It’s a type of craft that’s a true “IYKYK” proposition, though. From a distance the handwork on these dials might not be obvious, but they really come alive under close examination, especially under a loupe.
Anyway, the TYPE2C-2 dispenses with all of this in favor of a completely new dial crafted from porcelain. The inspiration here is 19th century pocket watches, reinterpreted through the Naoya Hida lens which is focused on a strong design language rooted in the 1950s and 60s. The brand’s logo at 12:00 as well as the indices are all hand painted, and frankly we wouldn’t expect anything else given Naoya Hida’s commitment to handmade dial craft.
Like all of their watches, the TYPE2C-2 is best examined under magnification. Seeing the hand painted elements of the dial through a loupe is essential as it really helps to capture the very subtle depth in the paint and even more subtle imperfections and signs of a human touch. The fact that it’s really only under magnification that you can determine the text and indices are hand painted is a testament to their quality and the artistry of Naoya Hida’s dial suppliers.
The TYPE2C-2 is 37mm in stainless steel, and will retail for $20,600. A total of 10 pieces are expected to be produced between this year and next.
The NH TYPE1E is a refinement of Naoya Hida’s signature watch, which first appeared in 2019. The TYPE1 is not only the brand’s first watch, but a skeleton key to understanding everything that has come since. It includes all of the core elements that make these watches special: a handmade dial in German silver with beautiful engraving work, a case size squarely in the medium-small range, and design notes that are unmistakably influenced by classic midcentury dress watches by Holy Trinity maisons, especially Patek Philippe. And like the core watches from those brands, the TYPE1 doesn’t change radically from year to year. Instead, we see incremental improvements that make it feel even more like itself.
This year’s TYPE1E is officially the fifth generation of the reference, and its most critical update is a new case, which has been sized down a full millimeter from 37mm to 36mm in diameter. The crystal (a component that the Naoya Hida team never treats like an afterthought) has been reshaped and now has a more domed profile, an effort by the brand to give the watch additional depth and dimension. This has resulted in the TYPE1E’s case height increasing marginally from its predecessor, to 10.9mm (up from 9.8mm).
Naoya Hida will produce 25 TYPE1Es in 2026 and 2027, and the retail price is $19,500.
Next up, this year’s high end halo piece, the NH TYPE3B-4. Based on the brand’s TYPE3, their popular moonphase, the new TYPE3B-4 is likely the brand’s most opulent watch to date, with a fully engraved yellow gold case. This is not the first time the brand has issued an engraved case (the TYPE1 got this treatment in 2024) but this edition with the moonphase also includes gold infill on the engraved numerals, gold hands, and, of course, the gold (engraved) moonphase itself. Naoya Hida will only make two of these watches over the next two years. The retail price is set at $108,300.
If there’s a sleeper pick in this year’s crop of Naoya Hida releases, it’s likely the NH TYPE8A, a charmingly small dress watch that feels like something hardcore fans of the brand have been asking for from the beginning. The Patek Philippe comparisons here are inescapable – Naoya Hida himself attributes the design inspiration to the Patek Philippe reference 96 and the Breguet 3210, both similarly small dress pieces that are considered classics, but whenever they’re reinterpreted for a modern consumer, they are always upsized. Not so, here. At 31mm, Naoya Hida has not made compromises for the sake of modernity or contemporary design.
The key to making this watch work is the newly developed Cal. 2326SS, a small manually wound movement that positions the running seconds far enough away from the dial’s center to make the design coherent in a case this small. The caliber is visible through an exhibition caseback. Like all of their movements, the Cal. 2326SS has been modified for a precise winding feel that is meant to evoke the feeling of winding a pocket watch.
I like small watches, but this one is probably a little too small for my wrist. I was surprised, however, that even though I don’t think it visually comes together on my wrist, the watch itself still has real presence. I attribute that to the dial layout, and the way everything is pushed toward the perimeter, as well as the lug width being 18mm. That is a fairly wide stance for a watch of this size, and helps it look and feel more solid than you’d expect a 31mm watch to be.
According to the brand, approximately 20 examples of the TYPE8A will be produced over the next two years. The retail price is set at $23,100.
In addition to these core releases, Naoya Hida also previewed a new watch made in collaboration with the Armoury, their third collaboration together. The new TYPE4A-2 Floating Feathers takes the traditional 36mm TYPE4 case and pairs it with a beautifully engraved dial in Argentium silver, a lustrous and particularly bright silver alloy chosen for its resistance to tarnishing. The loose inspiration here comes from classic decorative dials found in watches made in the 1950s and 60s, often in cloisonne enamel and featuring scenes set in nature (birds, flowers, and so forth). This idea has been reflected through Naoya Hida’s sensibility, and the dial depicts bird feathers that have been engraved in a hyper realistic fashion into a bead blasted Argentium silver surface.
While the engraved feathers are certainly the highlight, Naoya Hida has not exactly taken shortcuts elsewhere. The hands are solid gold, faceted and polished by hand, and the perimeter of the dial is accented with solid gold, spherical minute markers. These relatively small details help elevate the whole piece, which was an unexpected highlight of the presentation.
The Floating Feathers is priced at $33,000 and only ten will be made. It is an “application only” piece, and applications can only be filled out in the Armoury store between May 17th and May 20th. Deliveries are expected in 2027.
Naoya Hida’s watches have really grown on me as I’ve had opportunities to see them in person once a year or so at these preview events. It’s a common refrain in watch writing that you have to see watches in person to truly appreciate them, but I really don’t think I’ve ever come across a brand where that’s more true than Naoya Hida. These watches, frankly, are easy to dismiss if you just look at the specs and how they exist on paper. They are steel watches, for the most part, use simple manually wound movements, and seem very straightforward at a glance. But the more you dig in, and learn about the degree of difficulty in crafting these dials, and also the immense amounts of customization that has gone into each movement to give them an uncommon, pocket watch-like tactile feel, it all begins to make sense. But it’s literally impossible to fully appreciate without handling the watches, winding the crown, and putting them on your wrist. Once you do that, however, they become hard to get out of your mind. Naoya Hida
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