NAOYA HIDA & Co. makes what it calls modern vintage watches, combining the handwork of skilled artisans with machining by the most advanced machine tools. Its founder, Naoya Hida, spent his career from 1990 in sales and marketing at several foreign specialist trading companies and served as head of the Japanese subsidiaries of F.P. Journe and Ralph Lauren Watches before establishing NH WATCH in 2018. Drawing on extensive experience selling high-end watches, he has also worked as a trainer for sales staff in the industry.

The NH TYPE 1B emerged from Project MV — Project Modern Vintage — begun three years earlier as a collaboration between NH WATCH and Rokuroku Sangyo, the Japanese firm that develops and manufactures ultra-precision micro-machining equipment of world-leading accuracy. The project is an attempt to combine cutting techniques from the most advanced micro-machining tools with the handwork of skilled artisans in order to produce beautiful wristwatches of a kind no one has seen before. The design motifs come from the watches of the 1930s to 1950s, the so-called golden age of the mechanical watch, but the aim is not mere reproduction: the house sets out to make wristwatches that could only be created in the present day. Production is strictly limited, organised around an annual release, and the brand maintains a showroom open by reservation.