Eternal Five-Star, Reborn Through Art

Time is intangible — how can it be carried?
We mark its passage in seconds and minutes.
A watch becomes a vessel of stories and a token that travels through time.

The Five-Star watch carries history within its movement.
When a witness of the past meets freely growing contemporary art, a dialogue is formed between China’s first national timepiece and Western artistic inspiration. The creativity of overseas artists encounters the pioneering spirit of China’s earliest watchmakers, creating a conversation that transcends time and culture.

Back to the Origin: 1955

In 1955, the hands of China’s first self-developed mechanical watch began to move.
The birth of the Five-Star watch marked the end of an era in which China could only repair watches, not make them. It signaled the nation’s entry into independent watch manufacturing.

The five-pointed star on the dial became a milestone of Chinese manufacturing and a symbol of the dawn of national precision industry.

Five Stars | 70th Anniversary | Reissue Wuxing | Limited Edition | 38mm

In 2025, Sea-Gull revives the spirit and form of the Five-Star watch through refined craftsmanship, recreating the classic design of China’s first watch. From the symbolic five-pointed star to the engraved “Made in China” script, every detail pays tribute to the original beginning.

Coloring Time: The Artist Matt Anderson

Matt Anderson is a British artist living in Shanghai.
He has witnessed countless stories engraved on aged watches that have lost their former shine. By restoring antique timepieces, Matt gives old time a new chapter.

When this embodiment of China’s pioneering watchmaking spirit meets contemporary art, how can the original determination and strength of that beginning be reinterpreted?

Art gives time new life.

Through their shared philosophy of time, Sea-Gull and Matt Anderson allow Eastern and Western artistic ideas to meet on the dial. Sea-Gull seeks a new way to express historical depth, while Matt uses vivid colors to bring human warmth to precise mechanical structures.

What truly moved Matt was the story of starting from nothing.
As a handcraft artist, he understands the feeling of creating from a blank beginning. The Five-Star watch represents a nation’s leap from repairing watches to manufacturing them — a journey that deeply resonates with him.

This shared experience of “building a complete world from small details” inspired Matt to continue the story of the Five-Star watch in his own artistic language.

A Dial as a Cultural Stage

Matt adapts his expression to each watch’s character.

From China’s First Watch to Modern Art | Sea-Gull x Matt Anderson

In reconstructing the Five-Star dial, he merges the aesthetics of 1950s–60s China with Western interpretations of time. On the dial, the gate of Sea-Gull’s old factory stands upon layered rock, symbolizing the starting point of Chinese watchmaking. The rising sun behind it represents new beginnings. Patterns of the eastern wind suggest momentum and growth, while the Sea-Gull logo becomes the sea itself, steady and all-embracing.

The Five-Star reissue dial becomes a stage where Eastern and Western art converge.
Under Matt’s fine brushwork, Eastern imagery and Western philosophy no longer oppose each other. Together, they form a new expression of “eternity,” freezing a dialogue that crosses time and culture and offering a renewed understanding of time and art.

Every brushstroke is more than decoration.
Through Matt’s work, these symbols become a gentle yet profound translation of the Chinese spirit by someone who has lived within this culture for many years. This is not imitation from an outsider, but interpretation by a participant — a sincere artistic dialogue.

A Long-Standing Bond with Sea-Gull

Matt is no stranger to Sea-Gull watches.
He has collected and re-created at least three of them. One piece was inspired by the phrase “Only in the coldest winter do the pine and cypress reveal their endurance,” depicting Changbai Mountain evergreens and giving time a sense of character. Another dial features peacocks layered in delicate brushstrokes, elegant and vibrant. His most recent work uses a crane gazing into the future — a symbol of vision, transcendence, and enduring vitality in Eastern culture — to express his understanding of time and the future.

Exploring Another Dimension of Time

Sea-Gull once marked China’s first step into independent watchmaking.
From refined Eastern aesthetics to technical precision, from solid Chinese movements to dialogue with global watchmaking wisdom, Sea-Gull now collaborates with artists and creators worldwide. Using the watch as a cultural medium, the brand opens a new dimension in which Chinese watches step onto the global stage and expand the boundaries of time.

Born to measure time.
Committed to heritage.
Returning to meaning.

By recording the past and witnessing the future, Sea-Gull continues forward — inward, toward renewal, and toward a broader horizon.

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