Masahiro Kikuno sets time in motion
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Christophe Roulet
Editor-in-chief, HH Journal
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“The Japanese don’t just copy others. They also invent and Masahiro Kikuno is a fine example of this creativity. An alumnus of Hiko-Mizuno College, one of Japan’s top watchmaking schools, he shares the same fibre, the same passion as everyone at the AHCI, which is why we invited him to join our stand in Basel.”
Antoine Preziuso had nothing but praise for this 28-year-old watchmaker whose Japanese-style temporal hour watch, Western-style temporal hour watch, and perpetual calendar tourbillon watch, the first ever to be made in Japan, left visitors to Basel in no doubt that Masahiro Kikuno is already batting in the big league.
The temporal hours system which he has chosen is directly inspired by traditional Japanese clocks or wadokei which measured time in six units for day and six for night. Seasonal variations were determined by sunrise and sunset times. Kikuno rose to the challenge to house, inside a wristwatch case, a mechanism that would lengthen and shorten the space between moving index markers, programmed over one year, and give civil time. Masahiro Kikuno has imagined his temporal hour watches in two versions, one Japanese and one Western, with Roman numerals showing time over 24 hours.
Equally impressive is his perpetual calendar tourbillon, based on a hand-wound ETA 6497 calibre which he has completely redesigned to create a technically accomplished and ethereal timepiece. Expect to hear more about Masahiro Kikuno in the years to come.
