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August 2025 marks our 8th birthday: over 15,000 watches delivered, more than 8,000 collectors and friends, 75+ references, 3 design languages, 2 GPHG awards and a single, seemingly impossible dream.

Our new MING 57.04 Iris is an appropriately significant and landmark watch for the occasion: it debuts our 5th-generation design language, a creative evolution that has been in development for several years now, and is our first ever destro.

Our first generation was experimental – finding our feet and figuring out what our design codes would be. The second generation – maximalist, elaborate, ornate, and with hollow flying blade lugs. The third generation shifted towards monobloc simplicity and minimalism with touches of ribbon surfacing. The fourth generation does not exist as a nod towards Asian superstitions – it was designed and consigned to stillbirth.

Our fifth generation is defined by a modern take on Art Deco: tightly sculptural with plenty of visual presence and restrained ornamentation. It is bold and unapologetic. It showcases our experience with complex, unconventional case construction and takes it to another level with our new stepped lugs that retain our signature flare, have 9 separate pieces to achieve a unique nested effect with crisply defined and differentiated finishing on each surface. Look closely and you’ll see the tops are polished, the sides satin brushed. This is not a watch that goes quietly into the good night.

The Iris’ stainless steel case is, by popular request, a larger 40mm size but remains carefully proportioned to be comfortable for all wrist sizes with a lug-to-lug distance of just 47.8mm. It has strong visual presence thanks to the alternating polished and brushed facets. The visual presence extends into the night thanks to the laser cut and MING Polar White filled indices in the top crystal. With a 100m water resistance it remains practical and well suited to daily wear.

We chose our favourite complication for the 57-series debut: the monopusher chronograph. Since 2017, Ming Thein (MT) has wanted to make an accessibly priced chronograph but was limited by movement choice and case architecture. The 57-series case answered the latter, and our partnership with Sellita the former.

Together with Sellita, we developed a unique configuration and movement finish in the Sellita for MING Cal. SW562.M1. It is a destro with hand winding, central seconds, and a 30-minutes counter at 6 o’clock. The destro configuration means MT could specify a large, tactile crown and pusher without concern for interference with the wearer’s wrist. It is topped off with a uniquely sculptural 4N coated three-quarter plate that contrasts beautifully with the rest of the anthracite movement.

The watch really earns its name on the dial side: it isn’t just the deeply dished and fluted dial that you notice first, nor is it the floating indices, or the uniquely shaped chronograph minute counter disc that has sandwich style construction overflowing with luminous material. It’s the colour of the dial itself that is impossible to define because it’s in a constantly shifting dynamic state between turquoise and purple and all the transitionary shades of blue in between. The effect is achieved with a multiphasic coating over a machined brass base. We call it ‘Iris’ because of its curvilinear radial pattern and the depth, intensity and dynamism of its colour.