Designers for Japanese watch brand Seiko have developed six conceptual timepieces for the company’s Power Design Project, including a stealthy watch for ninjas and one for boiling eggs to the perfect consistency.
The experimental timepieces were created as part of the Power Design Project, established in 2001 to encourage Seiko‘s in-house designers to develop innovative projects outside of their everyday work.
Each watch is designed to examine the essence of a watch and repurpose it for a fanciful or idiosyncratic use case based on a specific persona. The tagline is: “watches that 99 per cent of people don’t need”.
For this year’s edition, designer Yuya Suganuma created the Ninja Stealth Watch, which can be used to tell the time discreetly, even in complete darkness.
The watch features a tactile dial that allows the wearer to read the time through touch alone. Its elongated leather strap is secured using a wraparound technique based on Japanese archery gloves that offers added protection to the area where the watch is worn.
Kento Ito developed a watch for DJs that combines fluorescent paint and Seiko’s luminous Lumibrite material to illuminate the dial at night, especially under the black light commonly used in nightclubs.
The watch’s inner dial features a mirror finish that creates an illusion of three-dimensionality reminiscent of infinity mirrors.
Informed by its specific user profile, the dial also displays the time from 6pm to 5am, as these are the hours when DJs are typically behind the decks.
Similarly, the Vampire-Exclusive Watch by Yu Ishihara is tailored to a vampire’s nocturnal lifestyle, with a dial that only displays the time between 6pm and 6am.
The rotating bezel features coloured stones with a gradient that can be set to show when the wearer last consumed blood and how their blood levels are depleting over time.
Ishihara incorporated subtle vampiric details within the design, including lugs that resemble fangs and a bat-like perforated pattern on the back of the strap.
The watch’s blood-red dial features medieval-style hands and Roman numerals intended to evoke the historic folklore associated with vampires.
Yu Hirose’s Watch for Girls in Love was informed by the playful act of pulling petals off daisies to determine whether one’s love is requited or not. A disc decorated with a petal design randomly rotates to reveal different fortunes – either “Love me” or “Love me not” – through its single transparent window.
“The overall design of this watch is meant to be cute and to make the hearts of young girls in love flutter,” said Hirose, who incorporated a refractive domed glass that prevents anyone except the wearer from seeing their fortune.
What might a watch designed specially for Santa Claus look like? Takuya Matsumoto decided to incorporate a fully luminous dial that allows the time to be seen in the dark, along with an additional hand that shows the time in Santa’s next location.
The watch has a lid that can be closed to hide the Lumibrite dial and allow Santa to distribute presents without being seen. The GMT hand is shaped like a star, while the second hand displays a reindeer motif to evoke a sleigh ride through the night sky.
Designer Kiyotaka Sakai is a fan of soft-boiled eggs, known as hanjuku in Japan, but admitted he has had many frustrating experiences of trying to cook them for the correct amount of time.
He created a watch with a white timing hand that completes a full rotation in 12 minutes, with 30-second increments telling users when to remove the egg for their preferred level of doneness.
The Egg Boiling Watch features a case and dial intended to evoke the cross-section of a boiled egg. Both the white plastic case and the faux leather strap are made using composite materials that contain actual eggshells.
The outcomes of the 2025 Power Design Project were first presented to the public as part of the Incredibly Specialised Watches Exhibition held at the Seiko Seed exhibition space in Harajuku, Tokyo.
The exhibition then moved to London, where it is being shown at Japan House London on Kensington High Street until 16 June.
The watches are presented alongside descriptions from their designers and insight from experts who supported the project, including a vampirologist and Japan’s official Santa Claus representative.
Other unusual watches featured on Dezeen recently include a timepiece modelled on the computer interface of NASA’s 1960s Apollo spacecraft and a watch with a built-in bottle opener.
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