Hodinkee
Introducing: Ming x Massena Lab 57.09 'Secret Honey'
What We Know It's been five years since Ming and Massena Lab released their first collaboration. In that time, both Ming — the Malaysian-born microbrand founded by Ming Thein — and Massena Lab — the concept studio and curatorial brand created by collector William Massena — have grown and evolved somewhat dramatically, with Ming having moved through several generations of iteration, and Massena having worked with a somewhat staggering number of brands. Now, with each brand having grown up quite a bit, they've come back together to announce the Ming x Massena Lab 57.09 Secret Honey. The new watch, built on Ming's latest design platform, is a time-only watch that evokes similar ideas to the two brands' first collaborative effort half a decade ago, but updates them, bringing to the new watch many of the tricks Ming has developed over the last few years. Put another way, this is still a honeycomb-dialed Ming, just with a little more cheek. Here, Ming has blended the honeycomb concept with their multi-layered "secret" dial to create something dynamic and fun, with a lot of the charm of midcentury favorites in an undeniably contemporary package. Like so many Mings, the dial here is multi-layered, with a dark brown lacquered base dial sitting below a trio of rotating sapphire discs, each of which rotates at a different rate. These three discs are perforated with a different pattern and finished in a different color, with the bottom two layers finished respectively in orang...
