Did Ji Chang-wook go from watch brand ambassador to watch designer…completely by accident? A Rado global brand ambassador since 2023, the screen star famous for his lead roles in Healer, Empress Ki and other South Korean hit television series was on a visit to the Rado headquarters in Switzerland in March 2024 when he took a tour through Comadur, the manufacturing facility for Rado’s high-tech ceramic components. What was expected to be a standard walk through the research facility and lab, a presentation of its production processes and maybe a short Q&A ended up becoming an in-depth discussion of high-tech ceramic and its properties, involving questions about ceramic powder, casting individual parts, infusing colours and even the production process of sapphire crystal, according to the brand.

Given Ji Chang-wook’s sharp interest in ceramic watchmaking, the visit was not even over before it was decided between him and Rado CEO Adrian Bosshard that a collaboration special edition would definitely happen. Based on Rado’s True Square, which the actor named as the watch he enjoys the most and frequently wears himself, the True Square Open Heart x Ji Chang-wook Limited Edition was unveiled in late November 2025 at the opening of Rado’s first flagship boutique in Bangkok and is replete with references to him: a limited run of 987 pieces, likely a tribute to his birth year of 1987; hour markers made up of a dozen rubies, his birthstone and also a nod to red’s role in Korean culture as a symbol of fortune, vitality and protection; an openworked dial to reflect his character; and a black exterior to maintain an air of mystery.

On the technical front, the watch’s monobloc case, crown and bracelet are all crafted from matt black high-tech ceramic, with the case measuring 38 millimetres by 44.2 millimetres, at a thickness of 9.7 millimetres. Rado’s self-winding calibre R734, fitted with an antimagnetic Nivachron hairspring, keeps accurate time. Eighty hours of power reserve and 50 metres of water-resistance lend the watch a decent amount of practical advantage. To echo the rubies, red Super-Luminova accentuates the rhodium-coloured hour and minute hands, while nickel-coloured bevels add depth to the vertical-brushed dial. Circular graining on the bridges and Geneva stripes on the movement holder can be admired through the openwork dial, and all these internal components are safely ensconced between a sand-blasted titanium caseback with a smoked sapphire crystal and a flat sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating on both faces.

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