The Awake Son Mai Frosted Leaf Royal Blue with Gold-Leaf Dial

Timepieces by Awake Watches have clicked with the community mostly because of their dials, if not always for the watches as a whole. You can pretty much count on whatever you pick from their collections looking alive on the wrist. Whether it is the Son Mai Silver Leaf “Atlantis Blue” handcrafted in Vietnam using ancestral Son Mai lacquer technique and pure silver leaf gilding or the Guilloche Main with vibrant hand-turned guilloché decoration, every model finds a way to play with finishes. In line with this is the Son Mai Frosted Leaf Royal Blue, and Awake this time has added pure gold leaf to its repertoire for the first time, pairing it with rich blue lacquer for this 200-piece limited-edition model.

In 2024, Awake introduced the Son Mai collection as its first permanent range with four time-only watches. A year later came the Son Mai Frosted Leaf Collection, giving the brand’s Asian métiers d’art a fresh new direction through three limited editions. An extension of that is the Son Mai Frosted Leaf Royal Blue. Instead of the silver leaf seen on earlier Frosted Leaf watches, Awake has created a new “mille-feuille” construction by layering Vietnamese Son Mai lacquer, natural blue pigments, and pure gold leaf. The lacquer and blue pigments are sealed with varnish before the gold leaf is brushed on and gently sanded by hand. Repeating the process with lighter blue pigments creates the layered “Glacis” or frosted finish.

What really works is that even with the bold hues and intricate textures, the Son Mai Frosted Leaf Royal Blue with its dazzling lacquer dial does not feel busy. Awake has kept the hands and indexes clean by combining luminous inserts with finely finished steel caps. When the lights go out, the hands and indexes have a subtle blue glow that nicely complements the lacquer dial.

The Son Mai Frosted Leaf Royal Blue sits inside a 38mm stainless-steel case that has a thickness of 11.5mm. Polished and brushed surfaces, a slimmer screw-down crown, lugs that curve gently downwards, and a domed sapphire crystal give the watch a cleaner, more balanced profile. Its dial also shows Awake’s refreshed branding with a new handwritten logo. The watch comes fitted with a blue Alcantara strap by Jean Rousseau, complete with a micro-adjustable pin buckle that allows quick, precise sizing throughout the day.

Powering the watch is the automatic La Joux-Perret G101, delivering a generous 68-hour power reserve and running at 28,800 vibrations/hour. Turning the watch over reveals a sapphire caseback showing a tungsten rotor with polished, brushed, and micro-blasted finishes. The Awake Son Mai Frosted Leaf Royal Blue is priced at EUR 3,000.

For more information, please visit AwakeWatches.com.