Some colours never stop feeling timeless. ️

Key Highlights

• ATELIER WEN’s V3 is built around the 霞 (Xiá) salmon guilloché dial as its central design statement.
• V3 introduces stronger brushing, sharper surface transitions, and more extensive hand polishing compared to previous iterations.
• A brand new, heavily customised EPM03 movement powers the watch, presented with an open caseback.
• The open caseback allows the calibre to be viewed and appreciated directly — a deliberate showcase of finishing quality.
• The watch sits within ATELIER WEN‘s Perception collection, continuing the brand’s focus on Chinese watchmaking craft.

A Colour Built to Last

Some design decisions are iterative. Others are foundational. For ATELIER WEN, the salmon guilloché dial known as 霞 (Xiá) belongs firmly to the second category — a chromatic and textural anchor around which the entire V3 has been reconsidered. The name 霞, meaning rosy clouds or the warm glow of dawn and dusk in Mandarin, signals an intention that goes well beyond surface aesthetics. It is a deliberate framing of colour as mood, as cultural reference, and as a durable design philosophy.

ATELIER WEN is an independent Chinese watch brand with a clear editorial identity: to bring Chinese artistic heritage into serious horological conversation. The Perception collection has been the vehicle for that ambition, and with V3, the brand demonstrates how a single palette choice can demand — and reward — a wholesale refinement of the object around it. The salmon tone of the 霞 dial is not a seasonal flourish; it is the reason every other finishing decision on this watch was re-evaluated.

霞 (Xiá): The Salmon Guilloché Dial

Guilloché, the art of engraving precise geometric patterns into a metal surface before lacquering or applying enamel, has long been associated with the great European manufactures. ATELIER WEN’s decision to apply the technique to a salmon-toned dial is both a nod to that tradition and a statement of cultural independence. The warmth of the 霞 colour sits in productive tension with the cool precision of the engraved pattern beneath it, creating a surface that reads differently under changing light conditions throughout the day.

In V3, the dial is not simply carried over — it is the catalyst for a series of upgrades across the entire watch. Brushing has been strengthened, surface transitions have been made sharper, and hand polishing has been extended more thoroughly across components. Each of these refinements exists in service of the dial: the goal is a watch where every finished surface amplifies rather than competes with the 霞 centrepiece. The result is a coherent object rather than a collection of parts.

The Customised EPM03 Movement and Open Caseback

The movement story in V3 is equally considered. ATELIER WEN has introduced a brand new, heavily customised EPM03 calibre — not an off-the-shelf choice, but a movement worked extensively to meet the finishing standards the exterior demands. Pairing a refined dial with a generic or unfinished movement would undercut the entire proposition; the customised EPM03 ensures coherence from front to back.

That back-to-front thinking is made literal by the open caseback. Rather than concealing the movement, ATELIER WEN presents it as a concluding argument: the same care applied to the salmon guilloché surface and the brushed case flanks has been extended into the calibre itself. For collectors attending events like Watches and Wonders or browsing at authorised retailers, this kind of transparency — mechanical as well as aesthetic — has become a meaningful differentiator among independent brands. You can explore the full brand universe on the official ATELIER WEN website.

Why It Matters

For GCC collectors who have developed a sophisticated appetite for independent watchmaking, the 霞 (Xiá) V3 represents something worth tracking: a young brand making deliberate, documented progress across successive iterations rather than resting on an initial concept. The combination of a culturally rooted dial colour, elevated hand finishing, and a bespoke movement calibre positions ATELIER WEN in a conversation that extends well beyond its market tier.

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