Wednesday 30 September 2015

Conran Y167

I know today's watch is designer, but the question I'm left with is which designer is it..?

The watch is by Conran, and is a 3 hand dial design (or more correctly, 2 hands and a disc for seconds). It has a round metal case with a thick rim/bezel, and with the silver disc for the seconds, it makes the hour and minutes hands only visible in the white ring inbetween.

The back shows this is made by Seiko, with the watch using a Seiko Y167 quartz module, and having a typical Seiko back plate layout. It tells me that the watch is a mixture of stainless steel and base metal, is water resistant to 5 bar, and was made in Japan.

The serial number suggest a date of 88, 98, or 2008, and based in the design, I would guess 98 is the most likely. The full model number is Y167-0A40.

As the watch face only has the name Conran, the question of which designer is a challenge, with both Jasper Conran and Terence Conran being famous designers. There are very few links online with Conran and Y167, but one of the watches for sale in Japan mentions it is Terence Conran, so I'll have to assume at this time that they are correct. Sir Terence Conran was born in 1931 and is a designer, restaurateur, and writer. In his early career, he designed a shop for the designer Mary Quant, and is most known as the founder of the Habitat stores.

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