a smiling face lands in Milan
In Milan, inside D1 Milano’s flagship store, a familiar yellow face appears embedded in the architecture, resplendent in the city’s elegant retail environment. Stuart SempleThe HappyWatch by HappyWatch reaches through the same visual pressure, turning the scrunched-smile motif into a limited-edition, wearable work of art made with the Milanese clock brand.
The collaboration takes one of Semple’s most recognizable symbols and brings it to fruition, where time becomes both an object and an emotion. HappyWatch is available online worldwide and at the D1 Milano flagship, with the artist framing the piece around pressure, optimism and the slight emotional charge of colour.
‘Time is that omnipresent around us all,‘ Semple says. ‘Sometimes it feels like pressure, like this constant demand to squeeze in more and do more.‘
Stuart Semple turns his squishy smiley motif into a piece of wearable art with the D1 Milano.
color against the pressure of time
Stuart Semple’s HappyWatch features a yellow smiley face on a black case and bright pink silicone strap, with the graphic appearing to spill over the dial. This detail became central to the design process. THE artist he insisted that the hand-drawn look be continued from the engraved face of the watch to the strap, which took over a year of development with the D1 Milano team to align the printing, engraving and manufacturing of the strap.
His language moves away from the heavy codes of watch collecting culture. The case is graphic and light, the strap reads almost like a piece of wearable pigment, and the face retains the slight sway of a design under compression. Semple describes watches today as extensions of personality, since phones already tell us the time. Here, this personality is emotional, bright and deliberately unguarded.
‘The whole quiet luxury aesthetic is completely boring,‘ Semple says. ‘We see the color diminishing year by year and we are in serious danger of ending up in a beige bland universe. Color is life and color is for everyone. Radical optimism is what we need.‘
HappyWatch uses color and humor to meet the pressure of time
pink dye and an interactive showcase
Each HappyWatch comes in a special box set with a jar of Stuart Semple’s Pinkest Pink pigment, placing the release closer to a multi-art than a conventional accessory release. The gesture also connects the watch to Semple’s wider practice, where color has long had a public charge, from his Happy Cloud interventions to CultureHustle’s well-known materials.
At the Milan launch, the showcase became part of the job. A giant twisted smile appeared pressed from the surrounding facade, while a window installation drew from one of Semple’s paintings. Visitors were invited to make small smiling sculptures out of Pinkest Pink clay and press them into the windows, adding their own marks to the glass skin of the building.
the limited edition watch features a yellow face on a black case and pink silicone strap
the Milan launch turned D1 Milano’s flagship store into a participatory art project
each watch comes with a jar of Semple’s pinkest pigment
