Seiko has announced a pair of new Seiko 5 Sports limited editions made in collaboration with Japanese artist Kosuke Kawamura. Kawamura is well known for his work in collage art, and the new watches are colorful expressions of his taste and style that we think will have an appeal well beyond the art world. The new watches take specific design attributes from Seiko classics of the 60s and 70s and throw them together into something that feels completely modern and contemporary.
The primary point of reference here is Seiko’s “Time Sonar” watch from the 70s, which is the clear inspiration for the transparent dial and handset used in the new Seiko 5 pieces. The SRPJ41 has a completely translucent dial split between teal and orange halves, while the SRPJ43 has a dial in teal and a dark gray. The wearer is treated to a view of the movement’s date and day discs (in multiple languages), making for an extremely busy dial that is somehow still quite easy to read thanks to the clever highlighting of the current date and date at 3:00.
Other elements of the watch, including the bezel and the design of the minute scale at the dial’s perimeter, are borrowed from classic Seiko 5 sports watches of the 60s. If you’re a longtime Seiko collector or enthusiast, every element of this watch will likely look familiar to you in some way, but this particular combination is brand new. The watch itself, then, is something of a collage created by Kawamura.
The case is identical to those found on the SRPD series Seiko 5 watches that launched all the way back in the summer of 2019. That is to say, it’s 42.5mm wide and about 13.4mm thick, and should feel fairly familiar to anyone who has spent any amount of time with classic Seiko divers like the SKX007, etc. It doesn’t have the screw down crown and ISO certification for diving that many of those classic watches have, but these limited editions are truly more art pieces than sports watches.
The SRPJ41 is limited to 3,000 pieces, and the SRPJ43 is limited to just 500. The SRPJ41 is expected to list for $440 with availability beginning in September, and the SRPJ43 will be available in October for $490. Seiko has set up landing pages where you can request updates on this information here and here.
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