Gear Patrol admits up front that there’s a reason you don’t usually hear the term “Asian watchmaking.” Japan, China, and other countries in the East all have their own rich histories of clock and watch making. But, that doesn’t mean Gear Patrol’s not going to try to provide an in-depth overview of the watchmaking going on throughout the Asian continent.

And man, do they deliver. Gear Patrol manages to cover the waterfront by zooming in on individual watches and then panning out to see where the companies controlling these brands are headed. In addition to consuming more than 40% of luxury watch exports from Switzerland, the Asian market is developing some lustworthy home-grown brands of their own. Seiko Epson’s stable of brands is the most notable, led by Grand Seiko bursting onto the luxury scene in the last few years.

Gear Patrol manages to tell the story of the Asian watch industry by first zooming in on individual watches and telling their stories: the first Seiko 5, the Seiko quartz watch that ushered in the quartz crisis, the haute Credor Eichi. Through this lens, Gear Patrol tells the story and evolution of the Asian watchmaking industry and how it came to rival Switzerland’s for global watchmaking supremacy.

For the whole story, visit Gear Patrol.