Naoya Hida

Naoya Hida & Co. was founded in Tokyo in 2019 as the personal project of its namesake Naoya Hida, not a trained watchmaker but a professional who had spent decades working in high-end watch distribution and retail in Japan, in roles connected to brands such as Jaeger-LeCoultre, Vacheron Constantin, Breguet and F.P. Journe. After this long career spent observing the market from the inside, Hida decided to make the watch he had always wanted to own: the result is a tiny manufacture based in the Asakusabashi district of Tokyo, where a small team — including a WOSTEP-certified watchmaker and an engraver with experience at Seiko and Tiffany — oversees every stage of production.

The brand's aesthetic deliberately looks back to the golden age of mechanical watchmaking, between the 1930s and the early 1960s: Calatrava-inspired cases, classically styled numerals, and dials built with an architecture of concentric steps that the brand states is meant to recreate the depth and proportions of dress watches from that era. These are not, however, simple reissues, but reinterpretations carried out with contemporary micro-manufacturing technologies, following a stated philosophy of "watches never seen before" that combine Japanese sensibility with the memory of the Swiss golden age.

Naoya Hida & Co. presents a new annual collection, keeping production of each model severely limited — typically from under ten to a little over forty pieces — sold mostly by selective application to clients. This choice, combined with an almost total absence of traditional advertising, has made the brand a cult case within the independent watchmaking scene, appreciated above all by a public of enthusiasts and specialist retailers such as The Armoury.