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Since 2022, you could be forgiven for thinking of Atelier Wen as “the Perception company.” The brand didn’t start with their popular integrated bracelet sports watch, but as the demand for these types of watches grew, Atelier Wen has done their best to keep the Perception at the forefront of the conversation. They’ve done this through small runs of new dial colors and limited editions with various partners that allow them to play not just with color but the guilloche work that is the Perception’s calling card.
But it was never Atelier Wen’s goal to make the Perception their own version of the Royal Oak, a watch that completely defines the brand to the point that other collections are barely playing second fiddle. The conceit of the brand has always been to celebrate traditional craft techniques through the lens of Chinese culture. Look at their first release, the porcelain dialed Odyssey, alongside the Perception and you begin to see the brand’s vision more clearly. Now, a new collection has been unveiled, that will hopefully continue to broaden the brand’s appeal.
The Ancestra is a rather ambitious dress watch that’s quite complex in its design, but in a somewhat under the radar way. The centerpiece of the watch is the 925 silver dial which incorporates two traditional artistic crafts: hand hammering and grand feu enamel. The dial is produced by Kong Lingjun, a master Chinese enameler. After the dial is hammered, Lingjun gets to work on the enamel process. The enamel “paste” is carefully spread across the dial and fired five times until the right color, particularly the proper gradation of color, is achieved. According to Atelier Wen, this is particularly difficult given the uneven surface of the hammered dial, as this makes the dial more likely to warp in the heat. Once the color is deemed acceptable, the dial is polished flat. Atelier Wen tells us that each dial takes around 20 days to complete, and they have a failure rate of around 50%.
All of this labor produces a dial that is very impressive in person, with a rich depth of color and appealing texture. It follows a trend of enamel work appearing in relatively accessible watches in somewhat non-traditional ways. Like the Selten I reviewed recently, this enamel dial adds deliberate texture to the equation, where normally enamel is defined by smoothness and gloss. The textures and means of producing them are obviously quite different, but both play with our expectations of what enamel can and should look like. It’s totally subjective, of course, whether or not you find this style of working with enamel appealing. Personally I find Atelier Wen’s execution far more interesting and coherent than the Selten, but that’s at least partially because of some other details on the Perception’s dial, namely the use of diamond baguettes at the even numbered hours. This is unexpected, more subtle than you’d think, and serves to add even more contrast and depth to the dial surface.
Another detail that begs for inspection under a loupe can be seen on the handset. They are quite dramatically three dimensional (0.45mm thick, according to Atelier Wen), leaf shaped, and rhodium plated. The show stopping feature though is that the center section of each hand has been hollowed out and given a frosted finish framed by mirror polished bevels. It’s an incredibly intricate detail that really complements the use of diamonds in an interesting way, and is genuinely unlike anything I’ve seen in a handset at this price point.
The case is 904L stainless steel, and the 38mm diameter wears very comfortably in the manner of a traditional dress watch. Atelier Wen based the design of the case on the earliest known depictions of the dragon in Chinese culture: the carved Hongshan jade dragons. Finishing is a mix of brushing and polishing and very nicely done, and the case is 11.3mm tall, including the sapphire crystal. That’s perhaps a little thicker than what one might expect from a watch in this category, but surely some of that height is a consequence of using an automatic rather than manually wound movement. The height doesn’t detract from the overall comfort factor or wearing experience in a meaningful way, but I’d have been curious to see how this watch, or a watch like it, would have presented if Atelier Wen had elected to use a thin manually wound caliber that we’d normally associate with a traditional dress watch.
That said, the movement Atelier Wen chose is one of the more interesting things about the Ancestra. The use of the Pequignet Calibre EPM03 marks the first time Atelier Wen has produced a watch with a movement made outside of China. Pequingnet is a French watch brand and movement maker, and Atelier Wen worked closely with them to make a variety of customizations to the decorations of the EPM03. For example, the main bridge has a detailed etching of “Questions to Heaven,” the Chinese manuscript by Qu Yuan, consisting of a series of questions that speak to Chinese mythology. The caliber also features a ratchet wheel that has been black polished, and a skeletonized tungsten rotor that has been gold plated. It’s very nice looking, even if some of the more symbolic elements of the finishing might only resonate with owners who have an understanding and appreciation for specific elements of ancient Chinese culture. Atelier Wen claims the EPM03 will keep time to COSC standards (although it is not chronometer certified), and it has a power reserve of 65 hours.
Atelier Wen has been teasing the Ancestra to those of us in watch media for some time, and it’s exciting that it has finally been revealed to the public. At the Windup Watch Fair in Chicago a few weeks ago, the brand brought some samples to show off to attendees ahead of today’s official release announcement. Anecdotally, I can say that the watch seemed to be received warmly by attendees I spoke with, and Atelier Wen cofounder Robin Tallendier confirmed there was quite a bit of interest at his booth over the course of the weekend for this and other future Atelier Wen releases. Windup, of course, is just a single data point, and the jury is still out on the commercial success of the watch, but if viewed as a statement of purpose from a brand, I think the Ancestra has a lot to say about Atelier Wen’s ambition, and how they might continue to navigate an increasingly competitive space of sub $10,000 independent brands.
The retail price of the new Atelier Wen Ancestra is $5,850. Today marks the beginning of a 7 day ordering window. Delivery is expected in the second quarter of 2026. More information about the Ancestra can be found here.
