The Japanese maker’s Power Design Project is back and returning to London’s Japan House this month. Here’s a look at what’s in store.
Watch designers working in-house at a behemoth like Seiko are pretty good at following briefs. This year alone, we’ve had the 145th Anniversary King Seiko Vanac Limited Edition and Seiko Prospex ‘Marinemaster’ 1968 Diver’s Reinterpretation 300m. They’re both very tasty highlights from 2026 that you should check out. But the Power Design Project exhibition is what happens when the brand removes the rules and puts an extra shot in the creative juices.
Okay, so for a bit of context, the Power Design Project is an annual exhibition that has been around since 2001 and allows the Japanese brand’s designers to develop original concepts around a shared theme. This year, the exhibition is titled Passionately and Obsessively Crafted Watches and puts the focus on the components of a watch – think dials, materials, and hands – the stuff that brings the watch together. It will be the third time that the exhibition will return to London’s Japan House, as part of a commitment to Japanese culture.
What can we expect? Novelties that push the boat out. There’ll be tactile and visually-enticing watches that invite a deeper look. A quick glance at what’s in store reveals tickers that arrive in a variety of shapes and sizes spanning dainty tank shapes to bigger pieces on bund straps, and a steel gem that looks like it has been plucked from the control dashboard of a UFO. All good stuff, but even better when you soak it up IRL and not through a screen.
The aim of the exhibition isn’t to launch new novelties, although previously popular concepts have been brought into production. But it’s a chance “to give our designers creative freedom to draw on their own interests, instead of following a brief or chasing trends,” says Seiko UK’s head of marketing Faye Lovenbury.
These kinds of design-led creations speak to a burgeoning appetite within the watch world for shaped pieces. Indie brand Anoma sees time-telling as secondary to craft, releasing sculptural pebble-like timepieces inspired by a Charlotte Perriand table. Toledano and Chan’s buzzy b/1.3r references the Whitney Museum building in New York’s protruding windows in its angular case shape. And Audemars Piguet unveiled its Établisseurs collection earlier this year. It pushed creativity outside of AP's main collection reviving 18th-century design techniques spread between artisans and workshops for three exclusive designs. While the Power Design Project isn't for sale, if you're into funky watches, it could be a bit of you.
To quench your thirst for arty and obscure horological creations, head down to London’s Japan House between the 27th August and 15th September 2026 for the Seiko Passionately and Obsessively Crafted Watches exhibition.
Scroll on for a closer look at this year’s novelties.
Bar Indices
Day Indicator
Dial Texture
Hands
Machining Marks
Manual Winding
Spherical Surface
