Introducing MING Teams Up With J.N. Shapiro Again For A Flaming, Personal Take On Guilloché

Some collaborations are branding exercises dressed as creative partnerships. The MING × J.N. Shapiro 37.06 Lightning is emphatically not one of those, and comes out of a long friendship between Ming Thein and Josh Shapiro, both founding members of the Alternative Horological Alliance. Thein and Shapiro have applied their own craft to a single, surprisingly accessible project which gives traditional guilloché dial art a modern, colourful twist.

I had a chat with Ming Thein a couple of weeks ago about the history of his brand, and with the ten-year anniversary of their debut 2017 watch coming up, it has been quite the journey.

“Personally, I’d wanted to create a watch of my own since I started having any interest in watches," Thein said, adding, “which must have been 15 years at that point."

He also admitted to badly underestimating costs, lead times, and the gap between his quality expectations and those of his suppliers.

“We lost money on every 17.01 we sold before even counting the hidden costs of running an actual sustainable watch company, like customer relations, servicing, marketing, accounting, et cetera,” he admitted.

“It’s an understatement to say the learning curve was steep - it was a vertical cliff,” Thien told me. "Every subsequent model was a complete ground-up rethink reflecting what we’d learned up to that point, and whilst we aren’t doing this today, we are now coming out the other side and still reinventing the wheel with things like Polymesh and the 29.06 Peep Show.”

His answer to my last question that day was also reassuring, even if my questioning then felt fairly rhetorical: “You were asking what drives me? It’s seeing what we can do next.”

The MING × J.N. Shapiro 37.06 Lightning has an evocative name, and is all about the dial. Shapiro's team in Los Angeles engine-turns each from a grade-2 titanium blank on a traditional rose-engine lathe, using a pattern called "Lightning guilloché" that has never appeared on one of his watches before. The surface work is slow and precise, yet it carries a significant failure rate before Thein even enters the picture.

Then, it travels to Kuala Lumpur, where Thein heat-colours each dial individually with a butane torch. No coatings, no lacquer, just controlled fire applied to bare titanium. The outcome plays with light in blues, orange-yellows, and purples, offering the owner a defiantly modern 38mm take on traditional guilloché.

The dial is the first time I have seen heat-treated guilloché, and the unique vibrancy shines through. The titanium dial under the crystal of the 37.06 Lightning has a strong personality, as the flame treatment creates a fume-like effect, with a bright orange-yellow centre that turns bluish-purple at the edges, close to the colour of a traditional set of blued hands.

The final, manual process must be fascinating to perform, but leaves very little room for error, as just a few seconds too long or too short with the torch will ruin a dial. Understanding the power of heat, Ming Thein’s sharp eye and perfect timing mean everything.

The soft shape of trademark hands in blue with applied lume tells the time, and the crystal has the brand signature design of an engraved hour-and-minute ring, closed at 12 with the MING logo, laser-hollowed and filled with luminous HyCeram.

Through the sapphire caseback opening, you’ll see the brand-specific Sellita SW210.M1, a manual winding movement with MING's cool contrast of an anthracite baseplate and rhodium-plated bridges. With a large balance wheel at 12, it has an asymmetric charm, with a dynamic created by the large, curvy-triangular skeletonised bridge at 9. The architecture carries a visual tension that makes me understand why MING flips the strap for rear shots.

I am coloured by the fact that one of my favourite everyday pieces is a MING 37.02 Minimalist; it was, in fact, my contribution to the yearly Hodinkee USA team video on ‘Most Worn’ watches. But where the Minimalist is a piece of dark, restrained elegance on a very well-shaped FKM rubber strap, the collaborative effort of Ming himself and Josh Shapiro elevates the short-lugged (44.5mm) case. And it does so with an intimate, flaming hot, literally personal touch.

To me, 38mm cases are a fav, even if I have been known to rock a 44mm diver on a summery occasion, but the big boys don’t last more than half a day on my wrist. My build is not particularly scrawny, but the comfort of mid-size has stuck with me. So call me biased, but with this 10.9mm case, you’ll be in the land of Comfort, and the strap system with no keeper, developed by MING with Jean Rousseau, is equally ace.

For people new to the brand, this will be a strange mix of traditional craftsmanship and modernity, but therein lies its appeal. This can be said about most of MING's output, which is why the brand has a strong following; combining close-to-vintage sizing with innovative tech and dial art is a distinct combo that works.

For the owners of the MING x J.N. Shapiro 37.06 Lightning, the manual-wound movement in its MING-specific guise helps the watch stay slim, and the zen-inducing job of turning the crown always makes me smile, but what about the price? The similar base 37.02 Minimalist will cost a fair bit less, but at CHF 6,250, I would say this new collaborative effort is great value.

Handcrafted guilloché dials with a personal flame treatment make each watch unique, with the heat treatment serving as the intimate, personal signature of a GPHG-winning brand founder. That unique proposition will no doubt make these fly off the proverbial shelves, and is yet another release that retains Ming Thein's strong DNA while remaining a stand-alone piece of contemporary wrist art.

Brand: MING x J.N. Shapiro
Model: 37.06 Lightning
Dimensions: 38mm diameter, 44.5mm lug-to-lug
Thickness: 10.9mm
Case Material: 316L stainless steel
Dial: Hand-engine-turned Lightning guilloché in grade-2 titanium, heat-colored by Ming Thein
Indices: HyCeram luminous, laser-hollowed into domed sapphire crystal
Crystal: Domed sapphire front and rear, double-sided AR coating
Water Resistance: 100 meters
Strap: Blue Barenia calfskin with Alcantara lining by Jean Rousseau

Calibre: Sellita for MING Cal. SW210.M1
Functions: Hours and minutes
Power Reserve: ~42 hours
Jewels: 18
Winding: Manual
Chronometer Certified: No

Price: CHF 6,250 (excluding taxes)
Availability: Orders open Friday, 5th June, 1:00 PM GMT via MING and authorised retail partners, with initial stock available immediately
Limited Edition: Limited by production capacity (~10 pieces per month from July 2026)

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