Seiko Celebrates 110 Years with Glacier Inspired Prospex Diver

Now that it’s officially 2023, we can celebrate 110 years of Seiko watches by asking: can you ever really have too much of a good thing? When it comes to Prospex divers, apparently not. To mark this occasion, Seiko turns to their newest range of slim divers in the SPB313, 315, and 317 realm (a watch we introduced here) with the release of a limited edition SPB333 that gets a special dial and bezel treatment, suitable to honor the anniversary, as well as the intricate nature of the brand’s recent dial work seen across their model range. Whatever the excuse for this LE, we’ll take the end result, as this platform was among our favorite dive watch releases of 2022. 

Seiko has taken inspiration from the polar glaciers for this release, capturing their power and beauty in the texture of the dial. The watch is devoid of color, opting instead for a palette of whites, grays, and blacks. The silver and white dial gets a striated texture alluding to the unseen depth of its inspiration. Setting the themes and symbolism aside, it’s a beautiful aesthetic that works as well as you might expect in a watch like this, and it’s helped in no small part by the restrained level of contrast at use around it.

This SPB333 gets a light gray (or dark silver?) bezel insert with a concentric circle texture into which the markings are milled. It hits just the right tone to balance a practical level of contrast with a subtlety that doesn’t overpower the rather delicate dial texture and color. Likewise, the chapter ring at the dial’s edge hits a similar tone of gray, tying the whole space together. The seconds hand gets a coating of dark blue that stands apart from the rest of the watch, but not so bright as to be distracting. The hour marker surrounds and the finishing of the hands remains untouched, which feels like a missed opportunity to take a step further away from the regular production references. 

The watch will ship with the bracelet we first saw on the SPB313 and 317, a brick road style unit that takes a welcome step away from their oyster bracelets. This watch also gets a special polyester strap made of recycled bottles that’s been woven to reflect the texture of the dial, transitioning between white and gray. Inside beats Seiko’s 6R35 automatic movement providing 70 hours of reserve. 

The Seiko SPB333 110th Anniversary watch will be limited to 5,000 examples, and will be priced from $1,300, available at select locations this month. Seiko.