Latest Review
Ming launched their first watch, the 17.01, back in the summer of 2017. That watch sold out quickly, as did subsequent watches, and over a relatively short span of the time, the brand achieved an almost reverential status among affordable independent and micro-brands. The watches, from the beginning, have been stylish, highly distinctive, and have pushed design boundaries.
Our thoughts on Ming have evolved along with the brand itself. While the 17.01 is still easily recognizable as quintessential Ming, it’s remarkable to consider how much the brand has accomplished since that watch’s debut. Through rigorous roadmapping and experimentation, Ming has evolved into a significant indie brand with an ultra-clear design language. In the brand’s earliest days, it would have been easy to lump them in with other small brands finding their way in a competitive watch landscape. But over time, and particularly with their most recent crop of releases, it’s become clear that their ambition and ingenuity set them apart.
Some examples? Both are discussed in this video, but the use of white emitting lume on the 37.02 Minimalist and the impressive water resistance of the 37.09 are both illustrative of ways in which the brand is willing to invest in finding new ways to make their watches. The creative use of luminescent material has been a hallmark of Ming watches from the very beginning, and they’re rightly proud of figuring out a way to mix lume that truly emits white, something no other brand has done to this point. And the 37.09’s 600 meter depth rating belies its compact size. But because Ming takes a non-traditional approach solving watchmaking problems, they were able to design a case much more robust than its dimensions would indicate through clever engineering and old fashioned science.
This video was a lot of fun to make because having a group of Mings together that express different things the brand excels at really drives home the multitude of ways this brand is special. Both Zach Weiss and myself came to Ming ownership relatively late, but it feels like we’ve found the brand at a point where they’ve accomplished a lot of what they set out to do from the very beginning. Ming
