Watches

An STR Labs Project · AV86 × Smiths × Tokei Ronin

«الكَشّافة» هي الفصل الأخير من STR Labs — المختبر الذي يجمع سميثس مع Tokei Ronin في إصداراتٍ قصيرة تُصمَّم بحرّية تامة وتُصنع مرّةً واحدة ولا تُعاد. وبعد هذه الساعة يُغلق باب هذا التعاون إلى الأبد.

ميناءٌ بنيٌّ بلون القهوة يغمق عند أطرافه، تعبره خطوطٌ رملية ذهبية ترسم خريطة تضاريس مجرّدة — لا مكان بعينه، بل هيئة الأرض حين تُختصر إلى خطوط. المؤشرات مطبّقة بالأسود اللامع داخل أُطُرٍ فولاذية: نقاطٌ حول الميناء، وقضيبان عند الثالثة والتاسعة، ومثلثان عند الثانية عشرة والسادسة. وأسفل المركز سطران بالخط الرمليّ نفسه: ‎N 29° 22.714' E 047° 59.438'‎، و‎200 m = 660 ft‎. والإحداثيات ليست زخرفة؛ إنها موقع مكتب سميثس في مدينة الكويت.

وحين يغيب الضوء تنقلب الخريطة كلّها إلى توهّج: كل خطٍّ من خطوط التضاريس مضيء، فتُقرأ الأرض في العتمة أوضح مما تُقرأ في النهار. يحيط بالميناء إطارٌ أسود غير لامع، تتوسّطه نقطة مضيئة واحدة عند الثانية عشرة، فوق علبة فولاذية بقياس 40 ملم بتشطيبٍ مصقول بالفرشاة.

مئة قطعة مرقّمة فقط، وكل قطعة قابلة للنقش. تصلك الساعة على حزام نايلون أسود واحد؛ أما السوار الشبكي وأحزمة FKM التي تراها في الصور فهي أمثلة على ما يليق بها — والساعة تتبدّل تماماً مع كل حزام.

STR Labs is where Smiths and Tokei Ronin build without a brief — short runs, made once, never repeated. Al-Kashafa closes it. After this watch, nothing else will carry the STR mark. Not a pause. The last one, forever.

The dial is coffee brown, deepening toward the edge, crossed by sand-gold contour lines that map no real place — terrain as an idea rather than a location. Applied indices sit in polished steel surrounds: dots around the hour track, batons at three and nine, triangles at twelve and six. Below centre, two lines in that same sand-gold — N 29° 22.714' E 047° 59.438' and 200 m = 660 ft. The coordinates are not decoration. They are the Smiths office, Kuwait City.

Kill the light and the map turns on. Every contour line lumes, the whole topography glowing at once while the dial falls away behind it. A matte black bezel frames it, broken only by a single luminous pip at twelve, over a 40mm brushed steel case. Two hands, no seconds — time read, not counted.

One hundred numbered pieces. Engraving available. It arrives on a single black NATO strap; the mesh bracelet and FKM straps shown in the gallery are suggestions, not inclusions — Kashafa changes character completely with a change of strap.

Amalfi — named for the Italian coast where white stone meets blue water. A white panda dial on the GranTurismo Chronograph 39 platform: the Seiko VK64 meca-quartz pairing quartz accuracy with a mechanical chronograph module — true sweeping chrono hand, instant flyback reset. 39 mm of 316L steel under domed sapphire, water-resistant to 100 m, on Naga's hand-finished integrated snake-scale bracelet with hidden butterfly deployant.

Veloce — Italian for fast. A red panda dial on the GranTurismo Chronograph 39 platform: the Seiko VK64 meca-quartz pairing quartz accuracy with a mechanical chronograph module — true sweeping chrono hand, instant flyback reset. 39 mm of 316L steel under domed sapphire, water-resistant to 100 m, on Naga's hand-finished integrated snake-scale bracelet with hidden butterfly deployant.

A diver in the fullest sense. A black lacquered dial with Wolbrook's signature arrow hour hand, white BGW9 Super-LumiNova® on every hand and index plus a luminescent pearl at 12. Under a glass-box sapphire crystal, inside a 316L steel case with HexapleX® shock architecture and a 120-click unidirectional steel bezel, water-resistant to 200 m. Driven by the Miyota 9015 automatic. The first 949 pieces — a tribute to Wolbrook's 1949 foundation — carry an individually numbered caseback, deep enamel-filled with the motto THE PROOF IS IN THE DIVING and two narwhals. On the military green Tropic rubber strap.

Born between sea and sky. This Aéro-Club de France Special Edition carries the club's emblem and C3 Super-LumiNova® across a deep blue dial, with a rotating bezel marked for world-city time zones. Cased in 316L steel with Wolbrook's HexapleX® shock architecture, water-resistant to 150 m, the automatic movement assembled in France — presented here on the blue Tropic NBR rubber strap: oil-resistant, water-resistant, ocean-ready. An officially authorised Aéro-Club de France piece.

On the second of August, Kuwait does not celebrate. It remembers — a day that wounded the country, and the same day that belongs to its heroes: those who were lost, and those still among us.

This is the first Arabic edition in William Wood's history — the only watchmaker in the world building timepieces from decommissioned firefighting material, and a house whose every release has been a salute to those who stand in the front line. Smiths has been its first partner in the Arab world for five years. That a Kuwaiti company should be the one to bring this piece home felt inevitable.

It takes the form of a diver because Kuwait is a country of sea and pearl-diving — and because the sea teaches what this people already know: patience, a long breath, and the certainty of surfacing again. The mirror-silver dial is heat-treated to graduate from the blue of the sea below to the clarity of the sky above, ringed by applied Arabic numerals in sunburst blue. At its centre sits the Kuwaiti boom — the dhow once carried on the nation's currency — with the word الكويت engraved and gilded at its heart.

The crown holds brass stamped from a retired firefighter's helmet. The strap is cut from genuine upcycled fire hose. Nothing on this watch sits far from the story it tells.

Fifty pieces. Not simply a watch for the wrist — something to carry.

Caseback commemorative coin — after the words of the late Amir, Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah: "From Kuwait we begin, and to Kuwait we return."

Forged carbon, shaped by pressure and chance — no two cases ever wear the same pattern. Inside beats a self-developed, motor-driven movement that tells time like nothing else: light on the wrist, bold in presence. The MS1001 is mechanical artistry rebuilt for the present — architectural, unconventional, entirely its own.

A black dial that turns electric green in the dark, lit by C7 Super-LumiNova® beneath a glass-box sapphire crystal. The 316L steel case is water-resistant to 150 m with a screw-down crown, the automatic movement assembled in France — finished on a black "Tropic" rubber strap.