Atelier Wen Millésime 2025 Perception 漩 (Xuán)

After introducing a series of annual, community-driven Millésime editions in 2024 with Perception 睦 (Mù), Atelier Wen introduces Millésime 2025 Perception 漩 (Xuán) in 904L steel with a natural pietersite dial.

In what is the first new rendition of Perception in over a year, this edition introduces an all-new dial craft into its architectural form - with a natural pietersite dial. The stone has been selected for its resemblance to the textures and colours of 山水盆景 (shānshuǐ pénjǐng), or mountain-water landscape gardens that formed integral components in traditional architectural compounds, and served as visual and symbolic centres of the surrounding buildings.

Perception Millésime 2025 漩 (Xuán): An Overview

When Perception was first conceived, Atelier Wen’s designer, Alfred Chan, drew inspiration from traditional cues in Chinese architecture - from the elegant geometries of classical rooftops and windows, to the smiling faces of stone guardian lions and the intricacies of Chinese joinery.

A key feature of many traditional Chinese architectural compounds was the presence of a 盆景 (pénjǐng), or landscape garden. Far from being merely decorative, these miniature worlds of rock and water were placed at the heart of a home or courtyard to serve as visual and symbolic centres. They acted as focal points, bringing visual balance, anchoring the flow of the buildings around them, and guiding how this surrounding architecture was experienced.

Pietersite, with its deep blue-black tones and swirling patterns, naturally echoes the visual imprint and spirit of 山水盆景 (shānshuǐ pénjǐng), or mountain-water landscape gardens. These were the oldest and most classical renditions of such gardens, and placed emphasis on representations of movement and flow through the use of cascading water, mist and careful arrangement of rock formations.

Incorporating a pietersite dial into the 2025 edition of the Millésime, Perception 漩 (Xuán) brings a symbolic emblem that connects the origin of Perception's design with the shifting landscapes of this age-old Chinese tradition — that places nature at the very heart of architectural composition.

Perception Millésime 2025 漩 (Xuán): Features

For the second year running, the Millésime arrives in the familiar form of the brand’s integrated bracelet steel sports watch, Perception. With a case and bracelet crafted out of 904L stainless steel, and a customised extra-thin Peacock SL1588A calibre, it is designed to stand up effortlessly to the demands of daily wear.

The most significant change is the replacement of the guilloché dial with one that has been delicately crafted out of natural pietersite, a rare and captivating semi-precious stone that features a swirling mix of blue, black, gold and brown veins. The selection of suitable slabs of raw pietersite was a necessarily painstaking process due to the need for the selected stones to reflect the inspirational aesthetic of the 山水盆景 (shānshuǐ pénjǐng), since some of the natural inclusions resulted in colour combinations and/or distributions that were less suited.

The creation of the dial also proved extremely challenging due to pietersite’s natural brittleness and the delicacy of the twelve individual cut-outs for Perception’s hour indices. These are wirecut by-hand in a stonecraft workshop in Zhejiang, before being sent to polishers in Guangdong. This step also requires threading a fine balance between polishing the pietersite to a perfect sheen, and preserving enough thickness in the stone such that it retains its integrity.

Perception 漩 (Xuán) once more carries the Millésime’s hallmark of a small engraving of the brand’s logo on the caseback as a subtle marker of the edition.

The Evolution of the Millésime Edition

The French word “Millésime” is most frequently employed in winemaking nomenclature and denotes a particular year or “vintage”. The Millésime edition was launched as a yearly, limited and community-driven timepiece that allows Atelier Wen the freedom of a blank canvas on which the brand can try out its boldest, most experimental and/or requested-for configurations of existing collections.

Most of the brand’s limited editions are launched with collaborating parties and sell out extremely quickly. Because of this, many members of the community consequently miss out on these special editions. Owing much of its growth to this global Atelier Wen family, the Millésime project enables the brand to pay the community back by offering a still-exclusive, yet obtainable edition that they can get their hands on.

These will release in the form of a yearly limited edition that will prioritise the community in its format. Once gone, they will never be available again — thereby reflecting and upholding the idea of a yearly vintage.

As this is a Millésime edition, those in the Atelier Wen WhatsApp community will be given early-access to Perception 漩 (Xuán) in the form of a 2-hour window, giving them priority access to the first batch of 225 pieces that will deliver in Q2, 2026.

A portion of the initial 225 pieces will be set aside and made available on our website at launch, and all subsequent orders will thereafter be delivered in Q4, 2026.

Customers will be notified clearly of their delivery batch during the purchase/checkout process.

Technical specifications

Atelier Wen Millésime 2025 Perception 漩 (Xuán)

First 225 examples delivered in Q2, 2026, all subsequent orders delivered in Q4, 2026

Case

• Material: 904L stainless steel case with contrasting surfaces and exceptional attention to finish
• Diameter: 40mm
• Thickness: 9.4mm (incl. crystal)
• Lug-to-lug: 47mm
• Double-domed sapphire crystal with 10 layers of antireflective coating
• Semi-display caseback with hammered texture surrounding raised stone lion motif
• Sapphire crystal window with 10 layers of anti-reflective coating
• CNC-engraved, 3D lettering
• The casebacks of the first 225 pieces will be individually and sequentially numbered (i.e. 001, 002, 003/225), and will be marked with our engraved Millésime seal in black lacquer.
• All subsequent orders will have their serials reset and be individually and sequentially numbered (i.e. 001, 002, 003/XXX). They will also be marked with a different seal that will distinguish their batch.
• Water-resistant to 100m/10 ATM

Dial and hands

• Natural pietersite dial
• Four-layered dial construction, inspired by ancient Chinese architectural tenets of Sunmao (friction/imbrication through mortise and tenon joints)
• Chinese huiwen-patterned chapter ring, printed in Super-LumiNova ®, X1 grade, PVD-plated in black
• Applied rhodium-plated indices

Movement

• Customised, extra-thin (3.4mm) Dandong Peacock SL1588A
• Automatic winding
• Number of jewels: 32
• Frequency: 4 Hz, 28'800 vph
• Power reserve of 41 hours
• Decorated in circular Côtes de Genève with polished jewel and screw sinks, and heat-blued screws
• Tungsten rotor with circular Côtes de Genève and black rhodium plating.
• +/- 10s per day and further adjusted in 5 positions and for temperature fluctuations
• Tested exhaustively by the horological research institute of light industry (HRILI)

Functions/Indications

• Hours, minutes, seconds

Strap and buckle

• 904L brushed stainless steel bracelet with individually chamfered links and exceptional attention to finish
• Tapering from 22mm at the case to 18mm at the clasp, and thinning gradually from 3mm at the case to 2.6mm at the clasp
• Quick-release spring bars
• Proprietary, patent-pending on-the-fly micro adjustment system
• Telescopic deployant blade system for enhanced comfort and wearability

MSRP: USD 3'600 (excl. taxes and duties)

For more information, please visit atelierwen.com