QP got a sneak preview of the newly opened Seiko and Grand Seiko London boutique – these are just two of the many brilliant watches you can now buy in the UK for the very first time
By Chris Hall

If you hadn’t cottoned on so far, there is a new Seiko boutique in London (in Knightsbridge, just down the road from Harrods). This wouldn’t necessarily be scintillating news – other than a welcome mark of confidence in the UK watch market as a whole – were it not for the fact that the really interesting watches from Seiko have always been nearly impossible to buy in this country. 
Well, not any more. By “really interesting” we mostly mean Grand Seiko and Credor, and that’s what I gravitated to immediately on reaching the shop, but it’s worth noting that if your budget is a little lower, there are plenty of cult favourites on offer as well – a whole host of the coolest dive watches (monsters, turtles, samurais, buzzsaws, you name them).  Grand Seiko and Credor have only been available outside Japan since 2010, and this is the first time Seiko has really brought them to the UK. It is well worth a visit if you’re even half-interested in Seiko – there are dozens of watches that you almost certainly won’t have seen up close before. Perhaps most excitingly the London boutique is home to a couple of Credor “masterpieces”, including the Spring Drive minute repeater. Here are some clos...