A few years ago, we took on the challenge of making what we believe are the world’s lightest ever mechanical wristwatches. Solving this took an exhaustive amount of metallurgy and development, and today, we’re proud to present the MING LW.01 Manual and LW.01 Automatic, which weigh in at just 8.8 and 10.8 grams respectively.
MT set some ‘conventional’ constraints for this watch: it had to be a wearable (38mm) size and retain the tactility of metal. More importantly, it could not be technically compromised purely for the sake of lightness. You can probably see why it took quite a bit longer than expected to get there.
Every single component on the watch is optimised to hit the absolute balance of durability and weight, from rethinking case construction and assembly to exploring a wide range of ultralight materials (including carbon fiber derivatives and hollow-core 3D printing).
The final result is a complete head weight of just 8.8 grams with manual winding or 10.8 grams with automatic winding. The matching material buckle adds 0.6 grams, and the ‘record’ spec Alcantara strap just 1.2 grams. This puts a ready-to-wear watch at 10.6g or 12.6g.
You can discover the watch here and we also have a short video below discussing the design and engineering challenges of the LW.01.
The LW.01 is a Special Projects Cave release, limited to a total of 200 watches across both variants, and priced at CHF 19,500 (a 50% deposit is required for order confirmation). Collectors on the SPC Interest List will have early access starting now*, and we will open for general orders tomorrow, 27 October 2023 at 1PM GMT, or:
- 6AM in San Francisco
- 9AM in New York
- 2PM in London
- 3PM in Geneva
- 5PM in Dubai
- 9PM in Kuala Lumpur
- 10PM in Tokyo
- 12AM, +1 in Sydney
The choice between manual (ultimate lightness) or automatic (practical) is up to the customer at the time of order. Deliveries are expected to begin Q4-2024.
As always, we’re available at hello@ming.watch if you have any questions, and thanks in advance for your support!
-Team MING
*if you registered for the SPC Interest List, please check your Inbox (or Spam folder) for a separate email with early access details. We will also be holding a small number of the watches for our US event and Dubai Watch Week guests and visitors.
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Published: 26th Oct 2023