Orient's "Prestige Shops"

It's no secret every watch brand would love to have its own branded stores, where it could boast its timepieces in a manner most suitable to them, providing the right atmosphere, and having sellers that are more knowledgeable and better representatives of the brand. Of course, not every brand eventually runs such stores – either because their existing retailers do a good job at selling, or because of other constraints.

Orient, too, recently began expanding their own branded "Prestige Shops". How recent? I have not seen any specific documentation of this, but looking at dated mentions of these shops they seem to have popped up in 2015. There are currently quite a lot of Prestige Shop locations in Japan (it is a JDM thing – you won't find them elsewhere), some are probably just shops-within-shops, located inside larger retailer stores.

The Prestige Shops are primarily intended to showcase Orient Star, the brand's premium product line. What's nice about this is that, as is often the case with branded stores, Orient also occasionally introduce special "prestige shop editions" of their familiar models. What's even nicer is that these models are in fact fairly easy to find online – used and new.

Here are a few such special editions I happen to like – though I do not own these, the pictures are from online catalogs.

WZ0171DK – a golden variation of the familiar open heart dress watch.

WZ0241DA – open heart with a fantastic maroon dial.

WZ0221DK – semi skeleton with a gorgeous blue dial and rosy hands and markers.

WZ0051AC – a nice variation of the classic time-and-date design.

WZ0051DX – perhaps the crown jewel of the Prestige Shop models – Orient Star's great looking full skeleton, with some key elements of the dial normally in bright silver here presented in a sort of warm golden brown.

So, when shopping for an Orient Star – if you're looking for something a little different, keep these Prestige Shop models in mind!