MICROBRAND
MING Makes the Modern Microbrand Feel Architectural
Designed in Kuala Lumpur and built in Switzerland, MING has turned titanium, sapphire and torch-coloured dials into one of the most recognisable design languages in independent watchmaking. The watch pictured is the proof: the MING × J.N. Shapiro 37.06 Lightning.
MING × J.N. Shapiro 37.06 Lightning. Image: MING
MING launched in 2017, when Ming Thein, a Kuala Lumpur photographer with a theoretical physics degree from Oxford, and five fellow collectors released the 17.01: a 38 mm grade 5 titanium hand-winder on a Sellita SW210, 150 pieces per dial colour, priced under a thousand dollars. It sold out in minutes, and so did most of what followed.
The brand owns no factory. Design happens in Kuala Lumpur; cases, dials and assembly are Swiss, with Schwarz Etienne supplying the micro-rotor calibre in the 19 series and modifying Sellita bases for the 17 series, and Agenhor’s Agengraphe inside the 20.01 Series 3. The colour work, including the heat treatment on the dial above, is done by Thein himself in the Kuala Lumpur atelier.
What holds it together is a design vocabulary rather than a heritage story: flared lugs, layered dials under domed sapphire, lume laser-hollowed into the crystal, and experiments in titanium, tantalum and magnesium alloys. Geneva has noticed twice. The 17.06 Copper took the Horological Revelation Prize at the 2019 GPHG, and the 37.09 Bluefin dive watch won the Sports Watch Prize in 2024.
The 37.06 Lightning, launched on 5 June 2026 at CHF 6,250, shows how far the idea has travelled. Josh Shapiro, the Los Angeles watchmaker behind the Resurgence and a founding member with Thein of the Alternative Horological Alliance, engine-turns each grade 2 titanium dial by hand in his Lightning pattern. Thein then colours it with a handheld butane torch, with no paint or lacquer, and MING says only about one dial in three survives the process. The first batch sold out and delivery slots are filled through late 2027.
“Make the watches we want to see in the world.”— MING, on why the brand was founded (ming.watch)
Timepiece
MING × J.N. Shapiro 37.06 Lightning
| Case | 38 mm × 10.9 mm, 316L steel, domed sapphire front and back, 100 m |
| Dial | Grade 2 titanium, hand engine-turned by J.N. Shapiro, heat-coloured by Ming Thein; HyCeram lume in the crystal; hours and minutes only |
| Movement | Sellita SW210.M1, hand-wound, skeletonised rhodium bridges, about 42 hours |
| Strap | Blue Barenia calf by Jean Rousseau, MING tuck buckle |
| Price | CHF 6,250 excluding tax |
| Availability | First batch sold out; deliveries June 2026 to end 2027, then roughly 10 pieces a month |
Why this watch, on this wrist?
A MING buyer is choosing a founder’s eye over a brand’s archive. The Lightning is the purest version of that trade: two independents’ hands on a single dial, no two the same, and a photographer’s instinct for how light moves across a surface, applied with a torch. It belongs on the wrist of someone who would rather explain their watch than have it recognised.
The microbrand that outgrew the word
At 900 dollars the 17.01 was a microbrand watch. At CHF 6,250, with a delivery queue eighteen months long and two GPHG prizes on the shelf, MING is an independent in everything but the absence of a factory. The label still fits in one sense: it remains six collectors’ idea, run from Kuala Lumpur, sold direct in batches, and finished by the founder’s own hands.
Sources: MING, 37.06 Lightning product page · MING, The MING Perspective · MING, 17.01 product page · Monochrome, 5 June 2026 · SJX, April 2021 · The Star, Feb 2025
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