It's Thursday and I’ve been avoiding the vast majority of the 007 First Light content because I loved the Nintendo64 version of GoldenEye so much. In fact, I remember it being a bit of an issue — I would rather not sleep than not play the game. So I was hoping to skip the First Light hysteria, but here goes Omega, and pushes me closer to the game.    

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Omega Releases The Seamaster Diver 300M Chronograph 007 First Light, Their First Bond Chrono

The Omega x Bond relationship started with GoldenEye in 1995, which means it started with Pierce Brosnan and, for anyone who grew up in the late '90s, it started with a Nintendo 64 controller in hand. I spent an embarrassing number of hours in the GoldenEye game, and the Seamaster on Brosnan's wrist was the coolest watch in the world before I knew anything about watches. So yes, I have feelings about this. The new Seamaster Diver 300M Chronograph 007 First Light is launching alongside 007 First Light, a standalone origin-story game from IO Interactive (the Hitman people) and Amazon MGM Studios, due out May 27th, and lauded as a possible N64 GoldenEye successor. It is also, notably, the first chronograph ever worn by James Bond in any medium.

The case is the existing Diver 300M Chronograph introduced in 2019, so no surprises on the architecture: lyre lugs, curved crown guards, a conical helium escape valve at 10 o'clock, ceramic pushers. It measures 44mm wide and 17mm thick, which is a big watch — lug-to-lug comes in just under 53mm. Even bigger. Polished and brushed finishes, sapphire crystals on both sides, and a unidirectional bezel with a black ceramic insert and white enamel 60-minute diving scale complete the package. The only external differentiator from the standard black reference is the caseback, which carries the 007 First Light logo in black metallisation on the underside of the glass. Water resistance is 300 meters.

The dial is all new. The base is the standard polished ceramic with laser-engraved waves, but the sub-dial ring at 3 o'clock gets a PVD bronze-gold treatment, and the same finish carries over to the central chronograph seconds hand. Everything else — indexes, remaining hands — is rhodium-plated with white Super-LumiNova. The Seamaster name is done in red. It's a restrained edition considering the IP it's tied to.

Inside is Omega's calibre 9900. It's an integrated automatic with column wheel and vertical clutch, co-axial escapement, antimagnetic components rated to 15,000 gauss, Master Chronometer certified, and running on two barrels for a 60-hour power reserve. The watch ships on a NATO strap in black, grey, and beige, and Omega is offering six additional game-inspired NATO options separately.

The Seamaster Diver 300M Chronograph 007 First Light is a special but not limited edition, priced at CHF 7,300 without taxes. See more on the Omega website.

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Alpina Teams Up With Watch Angels For First Pilot Chrono That Can Calculate Holding Patterns

Most pilot's watches borrow aviation aesthetics, and we love them for it. Whether it’s a recreation of a vintage pilot’s watch like Laco has been known to make, or a full-on homage to flight instruments like you can buy from Bell&Ross. This new watch from Alpina, made in collaboration with the Watch angels, the Startimer Pilot IFR Chronograph, looks like a traditional pilot’s chronograph, but actually has a novel mechanical complication. This watch will help you calculate how to enter and fly a holding pattern. A holding pattern, for the non-aviators among you (me included), is the oval loop aircraft fly while waiting for landing clearance — one of the more demanding phases of IFR flight, where pilots must determine the correct entry type (direct, teardrop, or parallel) based on their current heading and the inbound course. That procedure has now been translated into watchmaking hardware, which is either the most niche complication in recent memory or the most practically useful one, depending on whether you hold a pilot's license.

The case is 44.5mm wide and 15.8mm thick, built from stainless steel with a bidirectional black ceramic bezel and an anti-reflective convex sapphire crystal. The finishing combines vertically satin-brushed lugs with mirror-polished chamfers, and the lug-to-lug comes to 51mm. The IFR calculation system lives within the case components themselves — a push-release coupling bezel and an inner multi-level turning component that serves dual duty as dial ring and entry pattern calculator. Setting the watch involves two steps: align the inbound course on the bezel, then release and align the heading. The watch then displays the required entry type via color-coded apertures at 12 o'clock: orange for direct, red for teardrop, blue for parallel, along with all the courses and headings needed to fly the hold correctly. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The sunburst blue dial is busy, as any pilot's watch tends to be, but here’s there’s even more justification for it: polished metallic applied Arabic numerals filled with white lume, black hour and minute hands also in white lume, a 12-hour counter at 6 o'clock, a 15-minute counter at 12 o'clock, a running indicator disk at 9 o'clock, and a central orange hand for UTC. The two apertures that display the holding pattern entry type sit just below the 12 o'clock position. 

Inside is the Sellita SW531b column wheel chronograph calibre, beating at 28,800vph with a 62-hour power reserve and 25 jewels. Each watch comes with two leather pilot straps — one light grey, one camel brown — both with stainless steel pin buckles and a quick-release system.

Orders open today, May 21st exclusively through the Watch Angels website at CHF 4,295 with shipping, local VAT, and import duties included. Limited to 300 pieces. See more on the Watch Angels website. 

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The New Son Mài Guilloché Main Just Proves That Awake Is Getting Better And Better

The French independent brand Awake has been building something interesting since pivoting away from its limited-edition space-themed releases toward the Son Mai permanent collection built around Vietnamese lacquered dials. I’ve loved pretty much every one of their releases in the collection, but the new Son Mai Guilloché Main is a bit special and a bit fantastic, bringing in a second ancestral technique to the mix: hand guilloché, executed in Italy by the Renzetti family on 19th-century rose engine and straight-line lathes. 

The case is familiar, 38mm wide and 11.5mm thick (10mm without crystal), down from the earlier 39mm by 11.8mm. The concave bezel is pleasantly rounded, the lugs are short, and the case alternates polished surfaces with brushed flanks. The screw-down crown ensures the water resistance of 100 meters.

Each of the three dials is completely distinct. The Sunset features a drape-moiré guilloché pattern from the 1930s — vertical waves engraved by straight-line lathe, then covered in natural lacquer with pink, violet and blue pigments in a gradient. The Alba dial has a helical guilloché radiating from the centre, then sent to Hanoi for sunrise-orange lacquering. The Borealis uses a complex, fluid guilloché with acid green, light green and yellow lacquer layers meant to evoke the Northern Lights. Awake's signature lume treatment carries over from the Frosted Leaf: indices and hands are blocks of SLN BGW9 capped with polished faceted steel overlays, so the luminous material glows from beneath. 

The movement is the La Joux-Perret G101 automatic, which we've seen in earlier Son Mai editions. It beats at 4Hz with a 68-hour power reserve, which beats both the ETA 2824 and the Sellita SW200 on that front. This one also gets a customised tungsten rotor. Each version comes on a colour-coordinated Alcantara strap by Jean Rousseau with Awake's new micro-adjustable pin buckle allowing 3mm on-the-fly adjustments.

Each of the three versions — Sunset, Alba and Borealis — is limited to 200 pieces and priced at €2,650 excluding tax. See more on the Awake website.

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Trafford Watch Co. Perfects The Crossroads, Now Much Thinner And With Great Colors

The Crossroads is an important model for Trafford Watch Co. The Austin, Texas brand has built a following on the back of its Americana-inflected design language and Nathan Trafford's obvious eye for color. The newly announced Crossroads S makes the collection even more important in their lineup. Not only does it perfect the retro rectangular case, now significantly slimmer, but it’s also the brand's first Swiss Made watch.

The case comes in two sizes — the Crossroads S 40 (35x36mm) and the Crossroads S 36 (31x32mm) — both 9mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 46mm and 40mm respectively. You might ask why Trafford calls these models 40 and 36, insinuating they measure 40mm and 36mm, but are actually much smaller… That’s because the watches wear like 40mm and 36mm round watches. I like that communication. Both are made out of 316L stainless steel with a hardened coating. Up top is a double-domed sapphire crystal with an internal anti-reflective coating. Water resistance is 100 meters. 

The dials come in six colorways across three paired sets: Surf and Seafoam in oceanic teal and blue with yellow accents, Fern and Flora in forest green and pink, and Vine and Vellum in white and burgundy with light blue details. Each has a ribbed, sloped central section that casts a shifting shadow as the light changes across the dial, with polished applied Arabic numerals at the hours and syringe hands, both filled with color-matched lume. The result is clean and legible but avoids the trap of being boring. The color-matched lume is a nice touch. These dials clearly weren't assembled from a generic parts catalog.

The movement inside is the Sellita SW210, a hand-wound no-date movement that beats at 4Hz with 42 hours of power reserve. It’s also regulated to ±5 seconds per day. Each watch ships on a color-matched or contrasting Crazy Horse leather strap with contrasting stitching and quick-release spring bars. A full stainless steel bracelet with solid end links, a butterfly clasp, and an on-the-fly micro-adjuster is available for an additional $249.

The Trafford Watch Co. Crossroads S is priced at $899 and available for pre order right now. Go get it, quickly. The Flora, if you ask me. See more on the Trafford website.

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Ferdinand Berthoud Launches the Chronomètre FB 2TV Flying Tourbillon, Kicking Off The New Mesure du Temps 1787 Collection

Ferdinand Berthoud has been doing things the hard way since Karl-Friedrich Scheufele revived the brand in 2015, and the watches have been worth it. The inaugural FB 1 won the Aiguille d'Or at the GPHG. The FB 3SPC became the first wristwatch with a COSC-certified cylindrical balance spring. Last year's Naissance d'une Montre 3 pushed the movement architecture somewhere few would dare. Now comes the Chronomètre FB 2TV Flying Tourbillon, the first watch in a brand new collection called Mesure du Temps 1787, named after a treatise on timekeeping published by the historical Ferdinand Berthoud in that year.

The case is 44mm wide and 15.46mm thick, made out of ethical 18k white gold, and takes its shape from the 2020 FB 2RE Remontoir d'Egalité. It's a round watch with two box sapphire crystals front and back, and the portholes that characterized the FB 2RE are gone. 

The hand-wound calibre FB-TV.FC measures 35.60mm in diameter and has 1,240 components, 777 of which belong to the fusée-and-chain alone. The flying tourbillon runs at 21,600vph, measures 15mm in diameter, and has three arms alternating between flat and sloping sections. Its variable-inertia balance uses four 18-carat gold fine-adjustment screws and a Phillips terminal curve spring. The fusée-and-chain has been entirely redeveloped with new geometry and a double superimposed Maltese cross stopwork system, while a differential mechanism keeps the movement running during winding. Power reserve has been extended from 53 to 60 hours and can be wound in roughly 6.25 turns of the crown.

Two details stand out as genuinely unusual even at this level. First: a stop-balance function that halts the movement when the crown is pulled, allowing to-the-second time setting. Second: a coaxial pusher on the crown that resets the seconds hand, either when the movement is stopped or in a flyback mode while the movement is running, enabling short interval measurements up to 60 seconds. These are rare features in a tourbillon. The time display is off-centered with a white varnished dial base, an engraved black varnished minutes track, and a 25.80mm central seconds hand that reads against a white lacquered inner bezel ring. The finish of the visible dial plate is hand-sanded natural nickel silver. The watch comes on a hand-stitched alligator strap with a white gold double-blade safety folding clasp.

Nearly 300 hours of manual finishing per watch, combined with the workshop's capacity, means Ferdinand Berthoud expects to produce 10 to 12 Chronomètre FB 2TV pieces per year, but it shouldn’t be a limited edition. Price is €383,000 including taxes. See more on the Ferdinand Berthoud website. 

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Watch Worthy - A selection of reviews and first looks from around the web

• A review of the Straum Jan Mayen Titanium Purple Borealis
• Hands on with the Patek Philippe Calatrava Ref. 5396R-016 Annual Calendar Moon Phase

---------------------------------------------

If you would like to receive some additional watch-adjacent content, as well as this news overview, every morning Monday-Friday in the form of a newsletter feel free to subscribe. However, there is absolutely no need for you to subscribe, as all the news from the newsletter is posted here. It is only if you want to receive a couple of daily links that are not strictly watch-related an occasional long form article and possible giveaways.

It's Wednesday and we have lots of depth today, literally and figuratively.   

If you like these updates, and would maybe like to subscribe to the newsletter so you get them in your inbox every day, you can do so by clicking here.

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Longines Legend Diver 59 Embraces A Vintage Look With Matte Dial And Improved Bracelet

The Legend Diver is one of those watches where the revival almost eclipsed the original in the public imagination. Since Longines brought it back in 2007, the collection has been through size variations, date additions, colour rotations and bronze experiments, all building on the appeal of that 1959 EPSA compressor case with its twin crowns and internal rotating bezel. Of course, this isn’t a true EPSA compressor case, but it looks the part. The 39mm no-date version introduced in 2023 sharpened the formula considerably, but the 42mm no-date remained the one gap that real fans kept pointing to. The Legend Diver 59 closes it.

The case is 42mm wide and 12.85mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 50.1mm. It follows the familiar compressor-style profile, which means the dual-crown arrangement is intact: the crown at 2 o'clock works the internal bidirectional bezel, and the lower crown does the winding and time-setting. Both of them screw-down. A domed box-type sapphire crystal sits on top, and the caseback is slightly angled for wrist ergonomics. Water resistance is 300 meters, and the watch has ISO 6425 certification.

Previous 42mm versions had glossy lacquered dials that looked good in photos but flared in direct light. The 59, which takes a lot of vintage inspiration, takes a different approach: a lightly grained matte black surface. Arabic numerals at 12, 3, 6 and 9 anchor the layout alongside elongated markers and a peripheral minute track, with the hands and numerals sandblasted to match the matte texture. Lume is old radium-tinted Super-LumiNova, which gives the whole dial a pleasant warmth.

Inside is the Longines calibre L888.6, the same COSC-certified automatic used in the Heritage Legend Diver 39. It’s built on an ETA A31.L11 base, beating at a slightly unusla 25,200 vph (3.5Hz), delivers a 72-hour power reserve and uses a silicon balance spring for anti-magnetic performance. The watch ships on a steel Milanese mesh bracelet with double-folding clasp and a micro-adjustment system that improves on earlier bracelet hardware, and a black rubber strap with diver's pin buckle is included.

The Longines Legend Diver 59 is available now at EUR 4,000. See more on the Longines website.

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Synchron Ti300M Poseidon I Loses A Lot Of Weight Without Losing Any Character

Rick Marei is best known for building up Doxa to the powerhouse it is today. He has left Doxa and has been focusing on rebuilding Synchron, the legendary dive watch manufacturer. These look very familiar, thanks to their Doxa 300T connection, but carry a lot of their own character. I’ve written about the Poseidon when it launched in 2023 and it was a chunky diver, made even more massive by its all-steel construction. And you could feel it. The new Ti300M Poseidon I fixes the one real problem with those earlier versions: it weighs almost nothing. 50 grams total, in fact, thanks to a Grade 5 titanium case, caseback, rotating bezel, and crown.

The case measures 41mm wide with a lug-to-lug of a fairly compact 45mm and, more critically, drops to 11.9mm thick. That's more than 2mm slimmer than the stainless predecessors. Those are some pretty great proportions. The bezel has depth markers in feet, and a 60 minute scale. Three layers of anti-reflective coating are applied on the flat sapphire crystal make this a pleasingly easy watch to photograph. A screw-down crown and screw-in solid titanium caseback back up the 300 meter water resistance rating.

The bright yellow dial will be instantly familiar to people who are fans of dive watches. Applied, polished metal indices carry greenish white Super-LumiNova X1 stripes. The handset follows the signature formula: a comically small hour hand, a large minute hand, and a sweep seconds hand with a rectangular pip. A black-on-white date wheel sits at three o'clock. The fish and trident Poseidon logo appears on the dial, a callback to the 1970s.

Inside is the La Joux-Perret G100 in Soigné grade, the top tier of LJP's calibre lineup, adjusted to four positions. It runs at 28,800 vph, offers a 60-hour power reserve, and is rated to ±7 seconds per day. The watch ships on a 20mm yellow Tropic strap with a stainless steel pin buckle; a black version is also available. Either choice looks the part.

The Ti300M Poseidon I is limited to 500 numbered pieces. The first 100 ship in the second half of May. Early-order price is $1,290, rising to $1,490 afterward. See more on the Synchron website.

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Eska Adds A Classic Blue To The Amphibian 250 Collection With The Blue Dolphin

The Eska Amphibian 250 has been one of the better stories in the French microbrand revival space. Two enthusiasts brought back a defunct diver brand, sorted out the movement situation along the way by swapping the NH38 for a Sellita SW200 in the White Shark, and have been rolling out new colorways at a steady pace ever since — red, green, white, black, and a warm-hued destro version we covered back in March. The Blue Dolphin is the latest in line.

The case is unchanged from the rest of the Amphibian 250 family: 40mm wide, 46mm lug-to-lug, stainless steel with 250 meters of water resistance, with a screw-down crown. The double-domed sapphire crystal and coin-edge unidirectional bezel with large, beige-tinted numerals are both unchanged. This version gets the updated bezel design introduced on the Green Turtle and Red Viper, with square pip markers replacing the earlier baton style.

The sandwich dial goes from a lighter blue that deepens toward the periphery, the kind of gradient. Applied indices and oversized Arabic numerals at 3, 6, 9, and 12 are cut through to a lume layer underneath. Eska went with blue-glow Super-LumiNova here, matching the watch's general personality.

Inside is the Sellita SW200, running at 28,800 vph with a 38-hour power reserve. Both standard and destro configurations are offered from the start, which is a choice I love to be offered. Strap choice is either a white rubber or a navy rubber with white stitching made by Rub Strap, which looks the more serious of the two in press photos. Unlike several previous Amphibian editions, the Blue Dolphin isn't a numbered limited edition.

The Eska Amphibian 250 Blue Dolphin is priced at €908 without VAT, with deliveries beginning July 15, 2026. See more on the Eska website.

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Perrelet Turbine Casino Roulette Brings A Fun And Colorful Game To Your Wrist

Perrelet has been in a playful mood lately, and that’s what they do best. The Turbine range went stone dial with the Weekend Malachite earlier this year, and now, presented at Geneva Watch Week 2026, the brand is pushing its signature spinning dial in an entirely different direction. The Turbine Casino Roulette replaces the usual propeller-style blades with a miniature French roulette wheel, and the result is one of the more committed pieces of wrist theater I've seen in a while.

The case is grade 2 titanium, 41mm wide, with brushed and polished surfaces and an integrated five-link titanium bracelet. Despite the width, it actually wears quite well because of the integrated short lugs. Water resistance comes in at 100 meters. Perrelet also throws in a black rubber strap, which is a nice touch.

The Turbine collection has been most recognizable for the turbine-style fan on the dial side of the watch, connected to the winding rotor, spinning as the rotor spins and creating a very interesting visual. The Turbine Casino Roulette uses the same concept, but turns the turbine into a roulette wheel, which is a very fun concept. The wheel is sandblasted stainless steel, shaped like a French roulette table with alternating red and black numbers from zero to 36, a green zero at 12 o'clock, and a small arrow that acts as the pointer. Move your wrist and the wheel spins; stop and you've got a result. Hours, minutes, and seconds are displayed centrally over the wheel, with Super-LumiNova on the hands.

Inside is the calibre P-331-MH developed by Soprod, the same movement that powers the Turbine Splash. It beats at 4Hz, delivers 42 hours of power reserve, and comes with both COSC and Chronofiable certifications. 

The Turbine Casino Roulette is a limited edition of 100 pieces, priced at €5,250. See more on the Perrelet website. 

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Hublot Goes Muted With The Spirit Of Big Bang Essential Taupe Chronograph

The Essential series is one of the more interesting things Hublot does. Once a year, online-only, they take one of their core case shapes and strip it down to a single color. Last year's Essential Taupe was applied to the Classic Fusion; this year the same treatment goes to the Spirit of Big Bang, in two sizes.

The 42mm comes in a titanium case, bumpers included, measuring 14.1mm thick. The smaller is 32mm wide and 10.8mm thick, but the case is made out of stainless steel.. Both share the same mixed finishing across satin, polish, and sandblast, a flat sapphire crystal on top, and 100 meters of water resistance.

The taupe dials diverge more than the cases do. The 42mm gets the chequerboard treatment Hublot introduced on the Coal Blue collection earlier this year, alternating satin and polished squares in a weave pattern that creates a real three-dimensional texture. The sub-dials at three, six, and nine have snailed interiors. The 32mm takes a softer approach, with a sloping taupe flange and applied hour markers that extend out over the dial surface to suggest depth. Both versions have lumed hands and indices, and both have date windows.

The 42mm has the HUB4700, Hublot's El Primero-derived high-frequency automatic beating at 5Hz with a 50-hour power reserve and 1/10th second chronograph accuracy. The 32mm gets the HUB1120, a Sellita SW1000 base beating at 4Hz with a 40-hour reserve. Each watch ships with two interchangeable taupe straps via the One Click system, in high-tech fabric and rubber. 

Both references are limited to 200 pieces each. The 42mm is priced at €24,300; the 32mm at €14,600. See more on the Hublot website. 

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Watch Worthy - A selection of reviews and first looks from around the web

• A review of the Straum Jan Mayen Titanium Purple Borealis
• Hands on with the Patek Philippe Calatrava Ref. 5396R-016 Annual Calendar Moon Phase

---------------------------------------------

If you would like to receive some additional watch-adjacent content, as well as this news overview, every morning Monday-Friday in the form of a newsletter feel free to subscribe. However, there is absolutely no need for you to subscribe, as all the news from the newsletter is posted here. It is only if you want to receive a couple of daily links that are not strictly watch-related an occasional long form article and possible giveaways.

It's Tuesday and I haven’t heard from Isotope in a while, but I love it when I see their watches. So unique, so fun.   

If you like these updates, and would maybe like to subscribe to the newsletter so you get them in your inbox every day, you can do so by clicking here.

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Atelier Wen Releases The Third Generation Perception With A Huge Change To The Movement

The Perception has always been a showcase for what Atelier Wen does best: Chinese traditional craft applied to a convincingly modern sports watch. The integrated design launched in 2022, the V2 sorted out the proportions, and now the V3 takes care of what was, according to some, the watch's weakest point. The Perception, and Atelier Wen as a whole, is all about identity. It was stared by two French men to showcase the best of Chinese manufacturing and artisanship. And yet, the movement they used in the first two generations was a stumbling stone for some. It was the Dandong Peacock, a decent movement in itself, but many expected something more special in a watch at that price. That’s fixed in this third version of the Perception, but with it comes a higher price tag. 

The 904L stainless steel case hasn't changed, which is the right call given how good the V2 proportions are. It's 40mm wide, just over 10mm thick, and has a 47mm lug-to-lug. It wears incredibly nice on wrist The design language is also unchanged: curved flanks that reference pagoda rooflines, a polished concave bezel, large bevels down the sides. Water resistance stays at 100 meters. Three versions are available on the new version — the Ice-Blue Piao and Salmon Xia return from the previous generation with brushed and polished surfaces, while the new Bamboo Green Yun replaces those finishes with a micro-frosted effect that looks more matte. This is my absolute favorite, by far. The bracelet tapers from 22mm at the lugs to 18mm at the clasp, with a clever proprietary clasp system that includes a patent-pending micro-adjustment button and a telescopic deployant blade.

The rose-engine guilloché fish-scale dial is one of the better decorative dials in this price category — it's produced in China by hand, using genuine rose engines. Applied faceted hour markers sit in cutouts on the dial, and the chapter ring carries Super-LumiNova with a huiwen geometric pattern printed into it. 

The calibre EPM03 is the biggest thing with the V3. Pequignet, based in Morteau near the Swiss border, is one of the last independent movement manufacturers in France, which makes sense for Atelier Wen to use — a further marrying of French and Chinese watchmaking. It beats at 4Hz and has a 65 hours of power reserve. Accuracy is certified to Besançon Observatory chronometer standards, targeting within ±2 seconds per day on average. It also gives the Perception its first hacking seconds, which was sorely missing from the Chinese movement. But even better than the stats of the movement is the incredible decoration. It has fan-shaped bridges filled with mirror-polished blue aventurine lacquer, which looks incredible, black-polished screws, laser-etched inscriptions, perlage, snailing on both the barrel and rotor. There's a full sapphire caseback now so you can actually see it, which the previous Perception didn't have.

The price jump from $3,320 to $4,850 will give some people pause, and it should. That's a significant increase. The thing is, I think it’s worth it. I had one on wrist in Geneva and I’ll write a full review this week. See more on the Atelier Wen website.

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Bell & Ross Teams Up With The Patrouille de France Acrobatic Squadron On The New BR-X3

The Patrouille de France collaboration has been a reliable Bell & Ross thread: the French aerobatic team's blue livery has prevously appeared on the BR-03 and BR-05 Chrono, and now it appears on the BR-X3, the brand's more recent and technical watch. Exactly something that pairs well with an acrobatic team.

The 41mm case keeps the familiar circle-within-a-square layout but pushes it further with a blue anodised aluminium bezel ring and matching side pillars, set against satin-finished and polished steel. Out back you’ll find a sapphire caseback featuring the Patrouille de France logo. Water resistance is 100 meters. 

The dial has a three-part construction: a matte black base, blue and white skeletonised appliques, and a black upper insert. The multiple shades of blue track across the watch to match the team's Alpha Jets, helmets, and flight suits. A French tricolour power reserve display at 9 o'clock, the squadron insignia at 6, and a central seconds counterweight shaped like an Alpha Jet are all details that tie it specifically to the Patrouille de France. Super-LumiNova covers the hands, numerals, and indices.

Inside is the BR-CAL.323, developed by Kenissi for Bell & Ross. COSC-certified, with a 70-hour power reserve, it’s supposed to be a really nice movement. The watch ships with two straps: an openworked black rubber strap and a sky-blue synthetic fabric strap matching the team's flight suits.

The Bell & Ross BR-X3 Patrouille de France is limited to 250 pieces, priced at €7,900. See more on the Bell & Ross website.

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Isotope Chronograph Compax Moonshot Horizon Gets A Cyan And Orange Combination

The Moonshot platform has been one of the more interesting chronograph propositions to come out of the independent/microbrand space in recent years, and Isotope is now adding a limited new variant: the Chronograph Compax Moonshot Horizon. The core concept of the Moonshot — silver aluminium discs that partially obscure the chronograph sub-dials, revealing only what you need to read them — remains intact, and I still love them. 

The case is 41mm wide and 15mm thick, machined from sandblasted Grade 5 titanium with an anti-fingerprint coating. The lug-to-lug measures 49.5mm. A double-domed sapphire crystal sits on top, and water resistance is 100 meters. Sitting below the crystal, but much above the dial, is a chapter ring with a telemeter and pulsometer case. The case comes paired with a new titanium bracelet fitted with a quick-release button system for strap changes; the bracelet tapers from 20mm to 18mm.

The dial is the major update we’re getting. A painted cyan-blue sunburst runs from bright cyan to deeper tones towards the edges, with orange rings framing the chronograph registers. The chapter ring has a turbine-style design with Super-LumiNova Grade X1. Isotope cites Moebius as visual reference for the aesthetic language, and once you know that, you can't unsee it: it's graphic, angular, and very deliberately not vintage. The Lacrima hands are also X1-treated.

Inside is either the ETA Valjoux 7753 or Swiss Landeron 73, both automatics beating at 28,800 vph with a 44-hour power reserve. This is a compax layout: small seconds at nine, 30-minute counter at three, 12-hour counter at six. The watch also comes with an orange FKM deployant strap as standard alongside the titanium bracelet.

The Isotope Chronograph Compax Moonshot Horizon is priced at £3,340 including taxes, limited to 30 pieces, and available as a pre-order now with delivery expected by end of June. See more on the Isotope website. 

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Panerai Pays Tribute To Sailing Yacht Eilean With A 47mm Bronze Radiomir PAM00760

There's an old Panerai argument that goes: the Radiomir is the more serious watch, the Luminor is the showier one. The PAM00760 confirms that argument as it’s quite a serious watch. Built to mark both the 90th anniversary of the sailing yacht Eilean and its return to classic regatta racing, this watch connects two things Panerai has been associated with since the 1930s — the sea, and bronze. Marine equipment has used bronze for centuries because of how it behaves in saltwater, so it makes sense to use it here. The patina it will develop is a bonus.

The cushion case measures 47mm wide, which puts it firmly in the "commitment" category. This is a watch you decide to wear, and wear it proud. Because there’s not a cuff in the world that will hide it. It has a bronze middle case, polished wire lugs and the large onion crown that defines the Radiomir silhouette. Out back is a sapphire display caseback with a titanium surround. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The fumé green dial darkens toward the edges in a way that makes it look super mysterious, and the textured surface gives it a vintage look. Like so many Panerai, it uses a sandwich style dial, with cutouts for the hour markers and a lumed layer underneath. The hour and minute hands are done in blue and they are the only hands you have indicating time. 

Inside is the calibre P.3000, Panerai's hand-wound in-house movement, with twin barrels giving it 72 hours of power reserve and running at 21,600vph. It's a big, purposeful movement, and I wouldn’t call it exactly beautiful. The watch comes on a brown calf leather strap with beige stitching and a matching bronze pin buckle.

The Panerai Radiomir Bronzo PAM00760 is priced at €19,500 and is available now. See more on the Panerai website.

5/

Parmigiani Fleurier Launches The Tonda PF Chronograph in 18k Rose Gold and Mineral Blue

The Tonda PF collection launched in 2021 with two chronographs that made a strong argument for Parmigiani Fleurier as a serious player in the integrated sports watch segment. The case design was clean, the movement was serious, and the collection has been building momentum ever since, most recently with the Chronograph Mystérieux unveiled at Watches & Wonders 2026. Perhaps the best watch of the show. Now the 40mm no-date version of their regular chronograph, which debuted in steel last year, gets a 18k rose gold case with a Mineral Blue dial.

The case is 40mm wide and 12.72mm thick, made out of rose gold, with the knurled bezel and teardrop-shaped pushers and lugs that define the Tonda PF family. A screw-down crown provides 100 meters of water resistance. Finishing is just fantastic Parmigiani: satin-brushed on the case flanks and bracelet inner links, polished on the crown, pushers, and bracelet outer links. The result is a watch that doesn't shout but has a lot going on up close.

The Mineral Blue dial is now already a cult dial for the brand, and I love it. While I prefer the color in a matte finish, this one has a hand-guilloché barleycorn pattern that must look fantastic in real life. Like I said, there’s no date aperture, and the chronograph counters sit at 9 and 3 o'clock, with a small seconds at 6, all with smooth sandblasted rings and white inscriptions against the grain d'orge background. Like other Parmigiani watches, there’s not a lot of lume here. The delta-shaped openworked hands and applied indices are rose gold, while the chronograph hands are rose gold-plated steel.

Inside is the PF070 calibre, shared with the 42mm version. It beats at 5Hz, measures 6.95mm thick, is COSC chronometer-certified, and offers 65 hours of power reserve via a column wheel and vertical clutch. The caseback opens to a 22k rose gold rotor with hand-bevelled edges. The watch comes on an integrated rose gold bracelet.

The Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF Chronograph in rose gold is priced at CHF 70,000, which is more than double the steel version. But have you seen the price of gold lately? See more on the Parmigiani website.

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Watch Worthy - A selection of reviews and first looks from around the web

• A review of the Citizen Tsuyosa Shore Series
• Hands on with the Patek Philippe Calatrava Alarm 5322G

---------------------------------------------

If you would like to receive some additional watch-adjacent content, as well as this news overview, every morning Monday-Friday in the form of a newsletter feel free to subscribe. However, there is absolutely no need for you to subscribe, as all the news from the newsletter is posted here. It is only if you want to receive a couple of daily links that are not strictly watch-related an occasional long form article and possible giveaways.

It's Monday and we’re back for another great week of watches. Have you seen the chaos over the AP x Swatch launch over the weekend? That wasn’t cool at all.  

If you like these updates, and would maybe like to subscribe to the newsletter so you get them in your inbox every day, you can do so by clicking here.

1/

Hamilton’s Khaki Navy Scuba and Khaki Navy Scuba GMT Gets New Textures And Colors

The Khaki Navy Scuba has always been a very traditional diver — solid, predictable, and well priced. Late last year, for example, they gave the Khaki Navy Scuba a black and red dial. It was a fine watch, but nothing exactly remarkable. Now, for 2026, Hamilton is refreshing the collection with new colors and textures. Textures that look quite familiar and might be a bit controversial. Oh, and we’re also getting a steel Scuba GMT version. 

The 40mm case hasn't changed: stainless steel, brushed, 40mm wide and 12.95mm thick, with a screw-down crown flanked by lateral guards and a screwed caseback. The unidirectional 60-minute bezel comes in black or blue sandblasted aluminium. Water resistance is 100m. But the thing is, those are the stats for the regular Khaki Navy Scuba. The Scuba GMT comes in a substantially larger steel case with brushed with polished accents on the crown, bezel notches, and the central bracelet link. That one measures 43mm wide and a whopping 13.9mm thick. It also gets 300 meters of water resistance, so that’s something at least. 

The 40mm's big news is the stamped and lacquered wave-textured dial, which does carry a whiff of the Omega Seamaster. The similarity is reinforced by the addition of dot indices alongside the existing wedge-shaped markers at 12, 3, 6, and 9. Five variants are available: three black dials (one with a turquoise flange), a silver, and a blue. The date window at 4:30 has a white disc. The GMT's dials are simpler: solid black or a blue gradient with a grained finish, and it swaps the dive bezel for a 24-hour scale with a red central GMT hand.

The 40mm is powered by Hamilton's H-10, the Powermatic 80 derivative with an 80-hour power reserve and Nivachron hairspring. The GMT gets the H-14, the same base movement adapted for GMT function. Both are solid, reliable options with a very useful power reserve. The 40mm comes on a three-row stainless steel bracelet with folding buckle; the black and turquoise models include a matching rubber strap with pin buckle. The GMT's black dial variants come with either bracelet or rubber strap; while the blue is offered on the bracelet only.

The Hamilton Khaki Navy Scuba 40mm is priced at €895. The Khaki Navy Scuba GMT is priced at €1,445. See more on the Hamilton website. 

2/

The New Seiko Astron GPS Solar Dual-Time Chronograph Gets A Slimmer Profile And New Movement

When Seiko introduced a sleeker, less gadgety generation of the Astron GPS Solar a couple of years back, the idea was simple: a high-tech quartz watch didn't need to look like a piece of aviation equipment from a sci-fi movie. That direction continues with the new Astron GPS Solar Dual-Time Chronograph, which gets a new calibre, a redesigned interchangeable strap system, and a quartet of references.

The case is made out of titanium with a super-hard coating, measuring 43.4mm across and 12.4mm thick — noticeably slimmer than its predecessor. I’ve always been puzzled by how thick these watches were, considering the fact that quartz movements can be made quite thin. The biggest structural news is a push-button strap release built directly into the end links, letting you swap between the titanium bracelet and silicone straps without tools. It's expected to have this on most watches these days, but still a notable upgrade. You get a sapphire crystal on top, and 100m water resistance.

All four references share the angular case design and multi-layered dial architecture the Astron is known for. The HAB001 comes with a dark blue dial, the HAB002 goes grey-and-blue, and the HAB003 adds gold-tone accents and ships on a black silicone strap only, no bracelet. The HAB004 is a 2,000-piece anniversary limited edition with a light blue dial and a matching blue-and-white silicone strap alongside the titanium bracelet. 

The new Calibre 5X63 GPS Solar is perhaps the biggest update. It connects to GPS satellites to set the correct local time and adjust for daylight saving automatically, keeps a perpetual calendar accurate for decades, and runs a 1/20th-second chronograph. On its own without a satellite fix, it’s accurate to ±15 seconds per month. Solar charging means no battery hassle, and Seiko rates the power reserve to six months on a full charge. 

The Seiko Astron GPS Solar Dual-Time Chronograph collection is available in June 2026. Pricing: HAB003 at €2,700; HAB001 and HAB002 at €2,800; HAB004 (limited to 2,000 pieces, includes titanium bracelet and additional silicone strap) at €3,000. See more on the Seiko website.

3/

Briston Clubmaster Legend Diver Ocean Adds More Maritime Themes To Their Acetate Diver

Briston has been doing interesting things with acetate cases for years now, and I've been a fan since I first discovered the Clubmaster Legend Diver back in late 2024. That watch had everything going for it — the cushion case wrapped in tortoiseshell cellulose acetate, the Miyota 8315, and a price that was very good. The new Clubmaster Legend Diver Ocean takes the same bones and gives the dial a redesign, this time leaning hard into the oceanic theme.

The case is unchanged from what we know: 40mm wide, 40mm long, and 13.4mm thick, in either tortoiseshell acetate or stainless steel. The unidirectional bezel has a sapphire insert, the crown screws in, and water resistance is 200 meters. Given that acetate and prolonged saltwater exposure is a combination I've personally had mixed experiences with — my faded and cracked acetate glasses can confirm — the steel version might be the more sensible choice for actual diving, but the acetate looks so good it's a difficult choice.

The new dial is great. Both versions get a 3D moulded wave texture across the surface. The acetate edition gets a white dial, the steel a deep oceanic blue. Hour markers are applied numerals coated in Super-LumiNova, with baton and arrow-shaped hands that are also lumed. A date window sits at 3 o'clock. The two versions are also distinguished by their seconds hand and crown band color — green on the acetate, blue on the steel.

Inside is the Miyota calibre 8315, the same movement as the original Diver, beating at 21,600vph with a 60-hour power reserve. Both versions have screw-in stainless steel casebacks. The watches ship on FKM rubber straps with a quick release system..

The Briston Clubmaster Legend Diver Ocean in acetate is €850, the steel version is €875. See more on the Briston website.

4/

Marathon Releases A Limited-Edition Pilot's Navigator To Mark America's 250th Birthday With Full Commitment

Marathon is a Canadian brand with a long history of supplying MIL-SPEC watches to the United States Department of Defense, and the Pilot's Navigator sits at the center of that relationship. The watch traces it’s origin to a 1986 collaboration with Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, which makes it a natural canvas for a limited edition ahead of what is shaping up to be a summer of relentless American anniversary content. Marathon has gotten in on the act early, and they sure committed to the concept.

The case is 41mm wide and 11.5mm thick, in stainless steel, finished with black ion-plating. The anthracite coating, Marathon says, is a reference to "the twilight's last gleaming" from the national anthem. Now if that isn’t a walk on the thin edge between corny and a good idea, I don’t know what is. The sapphire crystal is surrounded by a bidirectional 12-hour rotating bezel, and the crown screws down to achieve 100 meters of water resistance.

The dial carries a "1776" stamp just below 12 o'clock, surrounded by a ring of stars that nod to the Betsy Ross flag. The single red tritium tube at 12 is explained as a reference to "the rockets' red glare." It is, objectively, a lot, but it might work for select few people. But despite that, the overall effect is more restrained than the concept suggests.

The movement is a Sellita SW200 — robust, reliable, and nobody buying a military-heritage pilot's watch wants an exotic calibre they'll have trouble servicing. The watch ships on bison leather, a nod to America's national mammal (officially designated in 2016). The display caseback is new for Marathon, a first for the Navigator line, and features an engraving of "In God We Trust" alongside other patriotic details.

250 pieces will be made, shipping around July 4th at exactly $1,776. That’s a lot of nodding being done there. See more on the Marathon website. 

5/

A. Lange & Söhne Cabaret Tourbillon Returns In Honeygold With A Black-Rhodiumed Dial

The Cabaret is the odd one out in A. Lange & Söhne's lineup — rectangular in a sea of round, Art Deco in spirit when the brand leans toward the austere. First introduced in 1997, it evolved further in 2008 with a stop-seconds mechanism for a tourbillon, something that had been considered impossible the complication. The watch was discontinued in 2013, briefly revived in a platinum Handwerkskunst edition in 2021, and now returns again in Honeygold, the brand's proprietary alloy.

The case stays true to the original proportions: 29.5mm wide, 39.2mm tall, and 10.3mm thick. Honeygold is a harder, slightly cooler-toned alloy than conventional gold, which suits the Cabaret's geometry. The curved profile, stepped bezel, and sculpted lugs are carried over from previous models and they look mighty fine. You’ll find sapphire crystals front and bottom.

The dial is made from solid Honeygold and then black-rhodiumed, so what you see is a dark, near-matte base against which the hand-brushed relief elements catch and return light in warm gold. Roman numerals and hour markers are applied on top of that, and the oversized date sits in its aperture as usual. At six o'clock, the tourbillon sits with the upper bridge and cage polished to a mirror level. It is a serious-looking dial.

The movement is calibre L042.1, shaped to fit the rectangular case and comprising 370 components, of which 84 belong to the tourbillon. Three-quarter plate in untreated German silver with Glashütte ribbing, screwed gold chatons, blued screws, and hand-engraved cocks are all things you expect and get. The stop-seconds tourbillon halts the balance inside the rotating cage when the crown is pulled, allowing accurate setting to the second. Twin barrels provide 120 hours of power reserve at 21,600 vibrations per hour. The watch comes on a dark brown alligator strap with a matching Honeygold buckle.

The Cabaret Tourbillon Honeygold is limited to 50 pieces, with pricing upon request — which is standard Lange practice at this level. But also, it’s going to be around €300,000. See more on the Lange website.

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Watch Worthy - A selection of reviews and first looks from around the web

• A review of the Citizen Tsuyosa Shore Series
• Hands on with the Patek Philippe Calatrava Alarm 5322G

---------------------------------------------

If you would like to receive some additional watch-adjacent content, as well as this news overview, every morning Monday-Friday in the form of a newsletter feel free to subscribe. However, there is absolutely no need for you to subscribe, as all the news from the newsletter is posted here. It is only if you want to receive a couple of daily links that are not strictly watch-related an occasional long form article and possible giveaways.

It's Friday, have a great weekend and good luck to anyone wanting to get the AP x Swatch tomorrow.  

If you like these updates, and would maybe like to subscribe to the newsletter so you get them in your inbox every day, you can do so by clicking here.

1/

Seiko Releases Two 145th Anniversary Divers, The Prospex HBC005 And Samurai HBB001

Seiko's anniversary celebrations rarely produce anything truly surprising, but what they do produce are a solid, good looking watch that comes with a bit of exclusivity. This year marks 145 years since Kintaro Hattori opened K. Hattori in Ginza, and Seiko is marking it with two blue-accented limited editions based on models we've already met: the updated 1965 Heritage platform, and the redesigned Samurai, both from 2024. 

The HBC005 builds on the new version of the 1965 Heritage: 40mm wide, 13mm thick, lug-to-lug of 46.4mm, steel case with super-hard coating, screw-down crown and caseback, 300 meters of water resistance, sapphire crystal. The only real change from the base model is the bezel insert, which swaps to aluminum in Seiko Blue. It's a good-looking piece of kit, especially if you missed the SPB511 LE that introduced the updated bracelet clasp. This one carries it over, with a micro-adjustment system offering 15mm of range in 2.5mm increments via side buttons.

The dial on the HBC005 is silvery-white with a lightly brushed surface, embossed luminous hour markers, and a blue seconds hand to match the bezel. Inside is the calibre 6R55, an automatic running at 3Hz with 72 hours of power reserve: Seiko's workhorse movement for this tier. The watch ships on a three-link steel bracelet with super-hard coating.

The Samurai HBB001 uses the 2024 redesigned platform: 41.7mm wide, 12.3mm thick, lug-to-lug of 49.5mm. The angular edges are still there but tamed, and the lug-to-lug is actually longer than the old version despite the narrower case. Water resistance here is 200 meters. The bezel insert gets a two-tone treatment in silver for the zero-to-15-minute zone and Seiko Blue for the remainder. The silver brushed dial with matching blue seconds hand picks up the same setup as the HBC005. Inside is the calibre 4R35, a basic automatic at 3Hz with 41 hours of power reserve. Three-link bracelet, folding clasp.

The HBC005 is limited to 4,000 pieces at €1,500, available worldwide from June 2026. The Samurai HBB001 is limited to 9,999 pieces at €650, also from June. You can see the HBC005 here and the Samurai HBB001 here. 

2/

Nodus Adds Colorful Cerakote Coatings To The Sector II Field Titanium

Nodus built the Sector Series around a single design principle: one midcase architecture that can absorb any finish, any colorway, any iteration the brand wants to throw at it. And it’s working great for them. As evident in the new Sector II Field Titanium Cerakote Series which takes the already cool titanium field watch and slaps on a trio of cerakote finishes for a great effect. 

The case is made out of Grade 2 titanium, 38mm wide, 11.7mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 47mm and a 20mm lug width. At 45 grams for the watch head, it disappears on the wrist. The crown and caseback stay in media-blasted raw titanium, while the case and fixed bezel take the Cerakote in green, blue and sand. On top is a box sapphire crystal with blue anti-reflective coating on the underside. Water resistance is 100 meters.

Three colors are available: Canopy (deep, forest green), Dusk (a saturated, punchy navy), and FDE (a warm brown-bronze in the general family of dirt and stone). All three dials are matched to the case color and are paired to Old Radium Grade X1 Swiss Super-LumiNova.

Inside is the TMI NH38 automatic, beating at 21,600 vph with a 41-hour power reserve and antimagnetic resistance rated to 4,800 A/m, regulated in-house to ±10 seconds per day. The watch ships on Nodus's DPM Hybrid TecTuff rubber strap with a titanium buckle.

The Sector II Field Titanium Cerakote Series launches at $600 and is not a limited run. See more on the Nodus website. 

3/

MeisterSinger Introduces The Souscription Panthero Jumping Hour Guilloché

MeisterSinger is a brand that has made a habit of releasing things that seem almost deliberately counterintuitive: single hands, restrained dials, minimalism as a kind of philosophy. The new Souscription Panthero Jumping Hour Guilloché is the brand doing something technically ambitious within that framework. 

The 40.5mm steel case carries the slim bezel introduced with the Panthero collection, brushed and polished surfaces creating contrast without fuss. A domed sapphire crystal sits over the dial. At 50 meters, water resistance is just OK.

The dial has a light grey surface in guilloché using traditional manually operated machines, and the result is a texture that shifts constantly under different light. The minutes are read from an off-centre blue ring, while jumping hours appear through a circular aperture at 12 o'clock. The single hand tracks minutes. A rotating "sun wheel" that indicates the seconds completes the dial.

Inside is calibre MS-JH-01, built on a Sellita SW300 base with a proprietary jumping hour module developed with Dubois-Depraz. It beats at 28,800 vibrations per hour with a 47-hour power reserve. The watch comes on a blue embossed leather strap.

The Souscription Panthero Jumping Hour Guilloché is priced at €7,990 including VAT. See more on the MeisterSinger website.

4/

Panerai Goes Back To 47mm With Two New Vintage-Inspired Luminors

Panerai keeps reaching into the same well, and I keep falling for it. The new PAM01735 and PAM01629 are the latest in a string of archive-inspired releases, but these two take a slightly different route than that one. Rather than quoting a single visual feature, they chase the feeling of an aged watch. The reference point for both is the Ref. 6152/1, the 1960s cushion case model made for Italian Navy commando frogmen, and the 47mm case size is lifted directly from that original.

Both watches share the same 47mm cushion-shaped stainless steel case, with the brushed crown-protecting bridge, and a domed sapphire crystal that deliberately mimics the thick Perspex used on 1960s models, producing optical distortion at the dial edge, which is a genuinely nice touch. Water resistance on both is 100 meters. The PAM01735 has a polished stainless steel case with a brushed bridge. The PAM01629 is where things get more interesting: Panerai's first-ever forged titanium case, made by bonding two grades of titanium under heat and pressure with a forging hammer. The result is a surface with wave-like patterns in contrasting grey tones that varies from piece to piece, so no two watches look identical. It's 40% lighter than steel.

The dials are exact opposites. The PAM01735 gets a matte ivory sandwich dial with a grainy surface texture designed to cut reflection and approximate the look of a vintage dial that has been sitting in sunlight for decades. There's a gradient from lighter at the centre to a warmer, browner tone toward the edges with beige Super-LumiNova on the lower plate visible through the cutout Arabic numerals, and double pencil hands in matching beige lume. There’s also a small seconds at 9 o'clock. The PAM01629 takes the opposite approach: an anthracite sun-brushed sandwich dial with the same beige lume treatment, cooler and more industrial, which suits the forged titanium case.

Both are powered by the calibre P.3000, a hand-wound movement with twin barrels and a three-day power reserve. There's a useful quick-set hour function that advances or reverses the hour hand in one-hour increments from the crown's first position. The PAM01735 ships on brown calfskin with a steel buckle plus a black rubber strap. The PAM01629 comes on light beige suede calfskin with an extra black rubber strap.

The steel PAM01735 is priced at €12,100 and arrives in June 2026. The forged titanium PAM01629 is a limited edition of 100 pieces at €23,000, available in November 2026. See both on the Panerai website.

5/

De Bethune Teams Up With EsperLuxe Retailer For The DB27 Night Hawk

De Bethune releases watches at a pace that keeps even regular readers busy. Just in the past few months, I've covered, among others, the DB Eight, the DB28XS, the DB25xs Starry Varius, and a strange diver. But what we haven’t seen much of is the DB27. We should have. The collection has been running since 2012, when the Titan Hawk introduced the formula: Grade 5 titanium case, patented floating lugs, and the AUTOV2 movement, all in a slightly more compact and accessible format than De Bethune's flagship pieces. This new Night Hawk edition is a collaboration with EsperLuxe, an independent watch retailer in Sudbury, Massachusetts, and it's limited to ten pieces.

The case is 43mm wide and 9mm thick, machined from Grade 5 titanium with alternating polished and brushed surfaces. The floating lugs are one of De Bethune's signature looks: short, flame-blued titanium, matte-finished, articulated to flex against the wrist. The case middle has the brand's microlight decoration. Double AR-coated sapphire crystals are front and back. Water resistance is 30 meters.

The dial is brand new for the DB27 and it’s De Bethune's "Starry Sky" motif, made in flame-blued titanium, mapping the night sky as it appeared on the date and from the location marking the start of the EsperLuxe partnership in 2021. A classical chapter ring with Roman numerals surrounds the celestial disc, and a peripheral minutes track in Arabic numerals runs at the outer edge. The combination of an astronomical display at the center and conventional time-reading architecture around it works better than it has any right to. Mirror-polished, two-tone hour and minute hands — blued with silvered tips — and a central seconds hand sit on top.

The movement is the familiar AUTOV2 calibre, visible through the sapphire caseback. In-house, automatic, 217 parts, 28,800 vph, 60-hour power reserve. It includes a titanium balance wheel with white gold inertia weights for thermal stability, and De Bethune's own balance spring with a flat terminal curve. The oscillating weight combines titanium and tungsten. The watch ships on a blue fabric strap with a titanium pin buckle, and a second bespoke strap is included.

De Bethune DB27 Night Hawk is limited to 10 pieces, available only from EsperLuxe. Price is set at $70,000. See more on the EsperLuxe website. 

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Watch Worthy - A selection of reviews and first looks from around the web

• A review of the Citizen Promaster Land GMT
• Hands on with the A. Lange & Söhne Saxonia Annual Calendar 36mm

---------------------------------------------

If you would like to receive some additional watch-adjacent content, as well as this news overview, every morning Monday-Friday in the form of a newsletter feel free to subscribe. However, there is absolutely no need for you to subscribe, as all the news from the newsletter is posted here. It is only if you want to receive a couple of daily links that are not strictly watch-related an occasional long form article and possible giveaways.

It's Thursday and looking at the stats of the Swatch x AP post from yesterday and it’s easily one of the top 10 most polarizing posts I published. You guys either hate it or love it. Which is expected. 

If you like these updates, and would maybe like to subscribe to the newsletter so you get them in your inbox every day, you can do so by clicking here.

1/

The New Ming 29.06 Peep Show Is The Coolest Watch You Will See Today

This newsletter has a very established structure of the five posts every day. I open every issue with the most mainstream release I can find since the goal is to attract as many people as possible to it. Then I follow that up with major releases from lesser-known but still very cool brand. Then we have something from an indie or a microbrand, followed by an expensive watch. Very rarely do I mix this order up and its even rarer that I open with a watch from a brand that’s not well known to the large masses — these issues usually flop in performance, but I still do them because I’m blow away by a watch and think it deserves top spot. This is one of those occasions because the new Ming 29.06 Peep Show is just the coolest watch I’ve seen in months. 

Photographer-turned-watchmaker Ming Thein has been building his brand on the idea that light is a material. Layered dials, transparency, guilloché interacting with its environment… every Ming release is an optical argument. The 29.06 Peep Show takes that logic further than anything the brand has done before. The name is bold and the effect is wild. Those two dials in the photo above? They are the same watch photographed at different points in its rotation.

The 29.06 sits in the same family as the recent 29.01 Worldtimer but strips out the travel complication. The titanium case measures 40mm wide and 11.8mm thick, built with Ming's characteristic smooth bezel design where the sapphire crystal runs flush across the front. The "flying blade" lugs interlock with the caseback. Water resistance is 50 meters, which could be a hair better.

The dial is where things get interesting, and the effect is very familiar to photographers. It works through polarisation. Instead of conventional hands, two discs of linearly polarised sapphire rotate over the dial. When the discs align, light passes through and the dial becomes visible. When they fall out of alignment, the dial goes nearly black. As the watch runs, the dial phases continuously between visible and invisible. Beneath the discs sits a deeply machined guilloché plate with Ming's multiphasic coating, first introduced on the 57.04 Iris. When light hits it, it shifts across a full colour spectrum. How cool is that?

The movement is the second-generation Schwarz-Etienne calibre ASE 200.M1, developed specifically for Ming. It runs with a tungsten micro-rotor, an open-worked architecture with skeletonised bridges, a visible barrel showing remaining energy, and a rotor guard finished with diamond-cut anglage. Power reserve is approximately 86 hours. The strap is a Perlon-textured calfskin by Jean Rousseau, closed with a titanium tuck buckle and micro-adjustment.

The Ming 29.06 Peep Show is limited to 50 pieces, priced at CHF 22,000 excluding taxes. See more on the Ming website.

2/

Mido Adds A Midnight Green Colorway To Its Octagonal Multifort 8 One Crown

The Multifort 8, especially in the single crown setup, just might be Mido's most attractive mainstream watch — an octagonal-bezel sport watch with roots going back to a collection the brand launched in 1934. It’s now updated with a color that sits somewhere between teal and forest green. Mido calls it Midnight Green, and it’s good looking.

The stainless steel case measures 40mm wide with a lug-to-lug of 44.86mm, finished in a combination of satin and polish. The eight-sided bezel is the design anchor of the watch, each facet catching the light at a different angle as the wrist moves. On top is a double-sided anti-reflective sapphire crystal. The screw-down crown and screw-on caseback round things out, and water resistance is rated to 100 meters.

The dial is midnight green with a horizontal relief texture across the surface — a fine pattern that gives it some depth. Applied polished indices with white Super-LumiNova and tri-faceted hands in satin and polish. There's a date aperture at 3 o'clock and a white minute track around the flange. The overall effect is legible and tidy, and the metallic sheen of the indices plays well against the matte texture of the dial itself.

Inside is the Mido Calibre 80, based on the ETA C07.611. It runs at 21,600 vph, uses a Nivachron balance spring for improved magnetic and shock resistance, and delivers up to 80 hours of power reserve. The oscillating weight is decorated with Côtes de Genève and visible through the transparent caseback. The watch comes on a midnight green rubber strap with horizontal reliefs that echo the dial texture, closed with a satin-finished PVD stainless steel pin buckle.

The Mido Multifort 8 One Crown Midnight Green (Ref. M055.507.17.091.00) is priced at CHF 810. See more on the Mido website.

3/

ochs und junior Introduces Its First Four-Year Calendar, With A Brilliantly Economical Mechanism

ochs und junior has been making complicated watches for years, and every time Ludwig Oechslin builds one, the question is the same: how few parts can this possibly take? The moonphase a couple of years back needed five additional components on top of the base movement and could stay accurate for over 3,400 years. The new calendario quattro anni, or cqa, takes a different target — not the perpetual calendar with its hundreds of corrective parts, but a four-year cycle that accounts for every month length variation and skips leap-year logic entirely, requiring manual correction once every four years. The result sits between ochs und junior's annual and perpetual calendar offerings, and it is exactly as elegant as you'd expect.

The case is 40mm wide in grade 5 titanium, with the brand's familiar short-lugged round profile and circular brushed finishing. The case has super short lugs that make the watch incredibly wearable. On top is a flat sapphire crystal and you get 100 meters of water resistance.

The dial is classic ochs und junior. The base is the signature oj blue with circular graining, and the display is built entirely from square apertures arranged in two concentric rings. The outer ring has 30 apertures — two rows of 15 — each representing a day, with the edges of the apertures doubling as minute and second indices. When a month runs to 31 days, the 31st appears in the upper portion of the first day's aperture. The inner ring has 12 apertures for the months. All date and month displays are in orange, matching the seconds hand. Hour and minute hands are white gold-adorned. It sounds complicated to describe; in practice, it reads like a diagram of time itself.

Inside is an ETA 2824-2, the same base movement used in the brand's moonphase, with ochs und junior's calendar module on top. The three-toothed wheel governing month transitions adds switching impulses depending on month length — one for 30-day months, three for February — so the watch advances past non-existent dates without a perpetual calendar's corrective apparatus. The calendar is adjusted via the middle crown position. February in a non-leap year requires no correction; in a leap year, you manually advance to March 1. The watch comes on an Enzian Ecopell calfskin strap in small, medium, large, or extra-large, with or without orange stitching.

The ochs und junior cqa calendario quattro anni is priced at CHF 6,900 without tax. Orders placed now ship no later than early October 2026. See more on the ochs und junior website.

4/

Ulysse Nardin Commissions Chinese Artist Rendao Liu For Four Hand-Painted Miniature Dial Classicos

There are almost two separate Ulysse Nardin brands running under the same name. One is the heritage-conscious Marine collection, keeping a 150-year history of marine chronometers alive. The other is the Freak: silicon escapements, orbital satellites, cases that function as winding mechanisms. What tends to get lost between those two poles is the Classico line, which is where UN does its most classically watchmaking-adjacent work. That includes, occasionally, Métiers d'Art dials. The new Classico Rendao Liu Make Waves collection is exactly that: four rose gold watches with hand-painted miniature compositions by Chinese contemporary artist Rendao Liu, each one a seascape rendered in ink.

The case is 40mm wide in 5N rose gold. It’s about as classic as a case can get, with its gold sloped bezel and short lugs. Water resistance is 30 meters — this is a dress watch and makes no pretensions otherwise. 

Liu worked in ink to create the four compositions — Zhi Yin (Kindred Spirit), Miao Yin (Resonance), Xuan Qu (Mystic Melody), and You Ya (Graceful Ease) — all depicting the sea in motion against brooding landmasses. Ulysse Nardin's in-house micro-painters then studied each image and reproduced it on the dial, a process that takes around 50 hours per dial. The compositions is somewhere between Turner's turbulent seas and Hokusai's formal approach to waves.

Inside is the calibre UN-320, an automatic movement with a 48-hour power reserve running at 28,800 vph. It's one of the simpler UN calibres, but it uses a silicon escapement, the same technology UN helped develop under Ludwig Oechslin's oversight, which means reduced friction and improved magnetic resistance. The watch comes on a dark brown alligator strap.

The Ulysse Nardin Classico Rendao Liu Make Waves is priced at CNY 450,000 (approximately €60,000), limited to 25 pieces per design. Available through Ulysse Nardin boutiques in China and Geneva, and by special request globally. See more on the Ulysse Nardin website.

5/

Urwerk Says Goodbye To The UR-10 Spacemeter With A Blue Dial

Urwerk is not a brand that does conventional well. Founded in 1997 by Martin Frei and Felix Baumgartner, it built its reputation on satellite hour displays and cases that look like they were designed for a different atmosphere entirely. So when the UR-10 SpaceMeter appeared in 2025 with a round dial and central hands, the reaction was understandable confusion. Then you looked closer and it made sense, even with the seemingly conventional time-telling.

The SpaceMeter was inspired by an antique astronomical clock restored by Baumgartner's father. The hours and minutes are handled by slim syringe-style central hands, just like you would expect from a conventional watch, but then you see the sub-dials. The Earth counter at 2 o'clock tracks the planet's daily rotation in 500-metre increments, registering every 10 km. The Sun counter at 4 o'clock measures Earth's solar orbit in 20 km increments, ticking over every 1,000 km travelled. The Orbit counter at 9 o'clock folds both trajectories onto two synchronised scales simultaneously. Urwerk calls it an instrument of cosmic awareness, which is exactly the kind of thing Urwerk would say. And I love it.

The case follows the octagonal sandblasted titanium language of the UR-100 family, with the crown positioned at noon. At 45.4mm across, 44mm in length, and just 7.13mm thick excluding the crystals, it wears slimmer than its dimensions suggest.

This final edition of 25 pieces gets a wonderful blue dial. The domed dial has a circular satin-brushed finish, mirrored inside the bull's eye Orbit counter, where white and light blue rings create a clean, layered depth. The Earth and Sun counters are slightly recessed and sandblasted. All three sub-dials share open-tipped luminescent hands.

Through the caseback you can see a large blue rotor with spoked architecture at the centre, ringed by a 24-hour peripheral scale that tracks Earth's complete rotation via an arrow-tipped hand. Through the rotor's blades, you can see the Vaucher-developed movement below, an automatic double-barrel base with a 43-hour power reserve, topped by Urwerk's own complication module. The Dual Flow Turbines, two stacked propellers spinning in opposite directions, regulate the winding mechanism by creating resistance, protecting the movement from over-winding. It comes on a single-link sandblasted titanium bracelet with a folding clasp. 

The new Urwerk UR-10 Spacemeter Blue - Final Edition is limited to twenty-five pieces, priced at CHF 70,000 before tax. See more on the Urwerk website. 

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Watch Worthy - A selection of reviews and first looks from around the web

• A review of the Nivada Grenchen Antarctic Erotic
• Hands on with the Tudor Black Bay 58 Black-Gilt

---------------------------------------------

If you would like to receive some additional watch-adjacent content, as well as this news overview, every morning Monday-Friday in the form of a newsletter feel free to subscribe. However, there is absolutely no need for you to subscribe, as all the news from the newsletter is posted here. It is only if you want to receive a couple of daily links that are not strictly watch-related an occasional long form article and possible giveaways.

It's Wednesday and so, here we are, the Royal Pop has been officially announced and the AI slop renders of plastic Royal Oaks can finally stop. I’ll just say that I will be getting one. 

If you like these updates, and would maybe like to subscribe to the newsletter so you get them in your inbox every day, you can do so by clicking here.

1/

Audemars Piguet And Swatch Release The Royal Pop, A Bioceramic Pocket Watch

The hype machine has been running at full speed all week, and now we know what for. Audemars Piguet and Swatch have teamed up for the Royal Pop — a bioceramic pocket watch based on the Royal Oak's design codes. While people were betting this was going to be a full plastic version of an AP Royal Oak wrist watch, people who know Swatch history and thought about it a bit knew a pendant/pocket watch was coming. That’s quite interesting. After MoonSwatch moved a million units in year one and the Blancpain Scuba Fifty Fathoms proved that wasn't a fluke, Swatch pivots. Instead of making a cheap version of a famous wristwatch, something that might have been perceived as a quick cash-grab, they've made a transformable pocket watch that you can wear around your neck, clip to a bag, prop up as a desk clock, or — because Swatch is deliberately leaving this door open — potentially wear on a wrist via third-party accessories. While Delugs already announced they will come out with a strap for the Royal Pop, I think it’s kinda cool that Swatch and AP went this way. I’ll also just mention that a lot of the same people that have moaned that AP was ruining their image by teaming up with Swatch on a plastic wristwatch turned around and poo-pooed on the fact that it wasn’t a wristwatch and that no-one will buy a plastic pocket watch. 

The Royal Pop measures 40mm in diameter and only 8.4mm thick — without the clip holder. That's roughly the footprint of an actual Royal Oak Jumbo, which is not a coincidence, and it does make you wonder what someone with a creative bracelet adapter could do with it. The case follows Royal Oak grammar faithfully: octagonal bezel, vertical satin finishing, eight exposed screws. On the Huit Blanc white/rainbow version, those eight screws are randomized from the factory in different colors, so every watch comes out of the box looking slightly different. There are two crown configurations across the eight models — Lépine style with the crown at 12 and hours/minutes only, or savonnette style with the crown at 3 and a small seconds at 6. Both front and back are covered in sapphire crystal, which is an actual surprise. They could have easily gone with a plastic crystal at this price point, like on the Moonswatch, but this is cool

Eight colorways are available, each named for the number eight in a different language as a nod to the octagonal bezel: Otto Rosso, Huit Blanc, Green Eight, Blaue Acht, Orenji Hachi, Lan Ba, Ocho Negro, Otg Roz. Dial-wise, it's a Royal Oak reproduction in miniature — the Petite Tapisserie pattern is there, baton-shaped hands and hour markers are there, Super-LumiNova Grade A lume is there. It's recognizably a Royal Oak the moment you see it, but with unexpected colors. 

Power comes from the Sistem51 calibre, here in its first-ever hand-wound version. The movement is assembled entirely by machine, uses laser-set regulation with no index system, runs at a precision spec of -5/+15 seconds per day, and delivers a 90-hour power reserve. The barrel is openworked so you can see the mainspring coils — when the coils are visible, the watch needs winding; when they disappear behind gold color, it's fully wound, acting as a basic power reserve indicator. The caseback is exhibition glass with pop-art printing that references Roy Lichtenstein. The Royal Pop ships with a calfskin lanyard and clip holder; additional holders and lanyards in different colors will be sold separately as accessories.

The Royal Pop starts at €385 for the hours-and-minutes versions and €400 for the small seconds ones. I think that's a fair price — it's slightly more than MoonSwatch territory, but this is a more complex object. Swatch has confirmed this won't be a limited release but also won't be repeated, which means it won’t get diluted like the MoonSwatch. Another very cool thing is that AP is donating 100% of its proceeds toward watchmaking education and skills preservation. And as a final note, on the claims that AP has destroyed its credibility by doing this. I’m not convinced. No one confuses a bioceramic pocket watch for a steel Royal Oak. If anything, this is exactly the kind of outward-facing, culturally engaged move that keeps a brand relevant beyond its existing customer base. Way more than a Marvel collaboration that sells for six figures. Will I get one? Most likely. The watches will be available this Saturday from selected Swatch Boutiques only, with a limited of one per customer. Swatch links don't work on this subreddit, so you'll have to look for this one on your own. 

2/

Oris Redesigns The Artelier Date With A Younger Vision And A 38mm Case

Oris has spent most of the past decade getting attention for its dive and pilot watches, but the Artelier line has always been there, doing the more conservative work. The dress collection doesn't generate the same attention as an Aquis or a Big Crown, but it does represent a side of Oris that the brand is clearly trying to sharpen. This new Artelier Date is a thorough redesign, brought to 38mm, and handed to Lena Huwiler, a 24-year-old product design engineer, to see what she could do with it.

The case drops 2mm from the outgoing 40mm, landing at 38mm wide and 10.9mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 44mm. Those proportions should wear well on a broad range of wrists. The case is all polished stainless steel with tight, clean lines, and a domed sapphire crystal adds a gentle curve to the profile. Water resistance is 30 meters. I wish that was a bit higher.

Three dial options are available: dark blue, chocolate brown, and off-white. The blue and brown each get a stamped central medallion with sunrays radiating outward, alternating relief and recess giving the surface real visual depth without complicating the read. The off-white version goes with a swirling pattern on the medallion instead. Around the outside, a wide smooth chapter ring carries the applied indices, which are wedge-shaped, faceted, and three-dimensional, their polished faces picking up light. The blunt-tipped hands echo the index tips and carry a strip of lume. The date sits at 6 o'clock on a matching-color disc.

Inside is the Oris calibre 733, the Sellita SW200-1 with a customized red rotor, beating at 4Hz with a 41-hour power reserve. Strap options are a dark brown leather with butterfly clasp or a stainless steel bracelet with folding clasp. 

The Artelier Date on leather retails for CHF 1,750, bracelet versions for CHF 1,950. See more on the Oris website. 

3/

Timex Puts Space Jam on the Q and Makes the Seconds Hand a Basketball

The Q Timex has been one of the brand's most reliable workhorses for the better part of a decade: a retro sports watch that's affordable, wearable, and generally pretty hard to dislike. Timex knows this, which is why it keeps serving as the canvas for a bunch of really cool collaborations, from subdued to more expressive ones. The latest is the Space Jam x Q Timex 30th Anniversary Limited Edition, 1,000 pieces celebrating the 1996 film's anniversary with a dial that sits on the expressive side.

The case is standard Q Timex: 38mm wide stainless steel with an integrated bracelet and a bi-color blue and gray elapsed-time bezel on top. An acrylic crystal protects the dial, a deliberate nod to the original late-1970s Q references the watch draws its DNA from. Water resistance is 50 meters.

On the dial, Bugs Bunny in his Tune Squad uniform faces a basketball hoop printed across the dial, with the Space Jam 30th Anniversary logo woven into the layout. A clever detail is the basketball the functions as the seconds hand. Timex layered the effect by printing the backboard directly on the dial while mounting the hoop graphic on the inside of the acrylic crystal, creating a sense of depth as the ball passes through the hoop on every rotation. The watch's lume application is notably generous — Bugs, the logo, the basketball, and the backboard outlines all glow in the dark, making the full composition visible at night rather than just the basic timekeeping indices. 

Inside is a standard, unnamed, quartz analog movement. The watch ships on the integrated steel bracelet.

The Space Jam x Q Timex 30th Anniversary Limited Edition is limited to 1,000 pieces and priced at €259. See more on the Timex website. 

4/

Moser Gives The Streamliner Small Seconds Its Most Dramatic Dial Yet With A Lime Green Grand Feu Enamel

The Streamliner Small Seconds is a beautiful watch. That case is truly something special, with its beautiful curves and art-deco inspiration. But I’ve always been partial to how wonderful their dials are. And this new Lime Green fumé Grand Feu enamel dial on a hammered gold base, exclusive to H. Moser & Cie.'s nine boutiques worldwide, including the recently opened Chicago location, just might be my favorite. 

The steel cushion case measures 39mm wide and 10.9mm thick with the domed sapphire crystal included (9.3mm without). The integrated bracelet remains one of the better ones in this price range, each link individually articulated, moving with actual suppleness rather than the stiff approximation you get from most competitors. The screw-in crown is engraved with an M and water resistance is 120 meters. 

The dial is stunning. Moser starts with a hammered gold base, then applies three different color pigments through a dozen successive firings in a furnace, letting the colors oxidize and blend together without pixelation. The result is a Lime Green fumé gradient — bright at the center, deeper toward the edges — and because the process is done by hand and the behavior of enamel in heat is never perfectly predictable, every dial comes out slightly different. Applied indices sit at the perimeter. The Globolight hands are three-dimensional and well-lumed. At six o'clock, you’ll find a lacquered sub-dial with circular patterning holds the small seconds.

Inside is the HMC 500, Moser's in-house automatic calibre developed for smaller case sizes. The solid platinum micro-rotor sits on ball bearings with a bi-directional pawl winding system and delivers a minimum 74-hour power reserve from a 4.5mm-tall movement. The caseback reveals a partially skeletonized architecture with anthracite grey coating, Moser's signature double stripes, and the brand name engraved on the rotor. The bracelet closes with a folding clasp featuring three steel blades and micro-adjustment.

The H. Moser & Cie. Streamliner Small Seconds Lime Green Enamel Boutique Edition Ref. 6500-1201 is priced at CHF 30,900, available exclusively through Moser's nine boutiques in Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Menlo Park, Seoul, New Delhi, Singapore, Chengdu, and Chicago. See more on the Moser website. 

5/

Richard Mille Goes Old School With The Very Thin RM 55-01

Put me down as a person who imagines owning an RM 67-02. Sure, go ahead and make fun of me, but it’s a silly comfortable watch and I’ve always liked the tonneau-shaped case made out of really interesting materials. The price is stupid, sure, but we all have stupid ideas sometimes. However, the 67-02 has been long sold out and second hand prices are even worse. However, if you like ti as much, and maybe didn’t like the great colors they used on the model, and wanted to spend a bit less money, Richard Mille has a solution for you, the new RM 55-01 — a similar watch, just without the automatic winding.

The RM 55-01 is technically a new reference but not a clean-sheet design. The RMUL4 caliber shares its geartrain with the RM 055 "Bubba Watson" from 2012, so the DNA is over 14 years old at this point. What’s new is in the bridge layout, finishing, and case options. Three TPT variants are available: Carbon TPT in black, White Quartz TPT, and Grey Quartz TPT. TPT (Thin Ply Technology) layers material in 30-micron sheets stacked at 45-degree angles, impregnated with resin and compressed under heat. The result is high strength-to-weight material that I just love.

The case measures 37.95mm × 10.75mm with a 47.33mm lug-to-lug. One structural detail worth noting: there's no casing ring. The movement sits directly on rubber chassis mounts secured with titanium screws. Water resistance is 50m. The skeletonized dial exposes the bridges through an upper flange in grade 5 titanium, with index points filled with lume.

The RMUL4 runs at 4Hz with a variable inertia balance and two barrels in series that deliver 55 hours of power reserve and more even torque across the wind. The baseplate is grade 5 titanium treated with either microblasted/sanded black PVD or Titalyt, the same surface treatment used on the F.P. Journe élégante. Twenty-six jewels, manual winding. The watch ships on a fabric strap.

The Richard Mille RM 55-01 is priced on request; but it’s expected to be in the CHF 155,000 range. See more on the Richard Mille website. 

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Watch Worthy - A selection of reviews and first looks from around the web

• A review of the Citizen Tsuyosa seconde/seconde/
• Hands on with the A. Lange & Söhne Saxonia Annual Calendar 36mm

---------------------------------------------

If you would like to receive some additional watch-adjacent content, as well as this news overview, every morning Monday-Friday in the form of a newsletter feel free to subscribe. However, there is absolutely no need for you to subscribe, as all the news from the newsletter is posted here. It is only if you want to receive a couple of daily links that are not strictly watch-related an occasional long form article and possible giveaways.

It's Tuesday and how’s everyone feeling about the impending AP x Swatch collaboration? I’ve seen a photo that I can’t tell if it’s real, but looks very convincing… I like it, if that’s it…

If you like these updates, and would maybe like to subscribe to the newsletter so you get them in your inbox every day, you can do so by clicking here.

1/

Seiko Adds A Compass Bezel To The 5 Sports Field Series

Despite Seiko’s trend upwards in price, the Seiko 5 Sports Field range has kind of remained one of the better value propositions in the accessible watch market for a few years now. Back in 2023, Seiko gave it a GMT complication — the SSK023 and SSK025 — which made an already capable explorer watch genuinely more useful. Now they're adding something different: a rotating compass bezel, borrowing a feature that's long been a fixture of the Prospex Alpinist line and bringing it down to sub-€400 territory. Four new references, the HDB006 through HDB009, all mechanically identical but split into two distinct personalities.

The case is the same stainless steel unit Seiko has been running in this line for a while: 41mm wide, 13.2mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 48.5mm. It's not a small watch on the wrist, but it wears predictably for the size. There’s the controversial hardlex crystal on top, mineral glass caseback, push-pull crown, 100 meters of water resistance. The new bidirectional bezel is steel with a diamond-pattern knurl on the flanks — the HDB006 and HDB007 get a brushed steel finish, while the HDB008 and HDB009 are coated in brown or black respectively. 

The four dials break cleanly into two camps. The HDB006 (black) and HDB007 (white) are straightforward, glossy, and unadorned. The HDB008 and HDB009 lean into the outdoors brief with a green and a brown dial, each matched to its bezel color. Across all four versions, the Arabic numerals are coated in LumiBrite, compared to the previous Field watches where only the square markers were lumed. In the center of the dial, you’ll find the 13–24 hour scale and at 3 o’clock is a day-date aperture.

Inside is the calibre 4R36, Seiko's durable workhorse automatic. It runs at 3Hz, delivers around 41 hours of power reserve, and is about as far from glamorous as you can get. The HDB006 and HDB007 come on a three-link steel bracelet with folding clasp; the HDB008 and HDB009 get nylon straps with leather lining and a pin buckle, color-matched to the dial.

The Seiko 5 Sports Field Series with compass bezel launches worldwide in June. Strap versions (HDB008, HDB009) are priced at €390; bracelet versions (HDB006, HDB007) at €410. See more on the Seiko website.

2/

The New Bell & Ross BR-03 Looks Really Good In A Moody Green

The BR-03 has been through enough colorways by now that a new one needs something else going for it. The Green Steel has it: Bell & Ross dropped the minute track on this version, swapped in baignoire-style hour markers and applied numerals, and ended up with the cleanest BR-03 dial layout they've made since the 2023 refresh. Except for the wild date placement, of course.

The case is the familiar 41mm steel square, 9.65mm thick, with the four corner screws intact and the mix of brushed and polished surfaces that makes this case work as well as it does. At under 10mm thick, it wears surprisingly well for a square watch. You get a sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating on top, and 100 metres of water resistance. 

The dial is where this one gets interesting. It's a sunray green with a gradient that darkens toward the edges, finished in glossy lacquer that shifts with the light. It’s a beautiful color, but you might miss the bigger change here: Bell & Ross has dropped the minute track entirely, replacing it with applied numerals and baignoire-style hour markers. It's a cleaner, more elegant look than the standard BR-03, and it suits the dressy green finish. Hands and markers are filled with white Super-LumiNova X1, glowing green in the dark.

Inside is the BR-CAL.302-1, a Sellita SW300 base running at 28,800vph with a 54-hour power reserve. The watch ships on a black box calfskin leather strap with a spare black synthetic fabric strap included, both with a steel pin buckle.

The Bell & Ross BR-03 Green Steel is priced at €3,990 and is available now, as part of the regular collection. See more on the Bell & Ross website. 

3/

Sinn Gives Their 936 Chronograph A Full Black Case And Bracelet

A couple of weeks ago, I reported on two new Sinn watches, the groovy 554 & 554 RS and the pretty cool 308 Hunting Watch. What i completely missed is the 936S, a limited edition black version of the existing 936 chronograph. But since I see it’s still available, despite only 100 being made, I figured I could write about it still. 

The case is 43mm wide and 15mm thick, which puts it firmly in "you'll know it's there" territory. The thickness comes partly from the movement architecture, partly from the tegiment steel underneath a black hard coating that Sinn claims resists scratches better than standard finishing. Water resistance is 100 meters, and the chronograph pushers work underwater thanks to Sinn's D3 technology, which seals the pushers directly into the case band rather than using the external sleeves you'd find on most chronographs.

Most chronograph dials are cluttered at the best of times — 30-minute counter, hour counter, running seconds, all competing for attention. The 936S cuts through that by replacing the 30-minute and separate hour counter with a single 60-minute totalizer. The elapsed-time hands are painted red, the running seconds hand on the nine o'clock subdial stays white.

The movement is Sinn's in-house modified SZ05, based on the Valjoux 7750 and adapted specifically for the 60-minute counter. Beat rate and power reserve are in line with the 7750's standard spec, which means 4Hz and 56 hours. The bracelet is a black steel H-link, which suits the aesthetic and adds to the tool-watch character.

The 936S is limited to 100 pieces and priced at €4,150. See more on the Sinn website. 

4/

Andreas Strehler Continues To Expand His Eponymous Brand With A World Timer Trio

Andreas Strehler has spent decades building watches of extraordinary mechanical complexity — the Sauterelle à Lune Exacte, the Trans-Axial Tourbillon — which makes the brand he launched three years ago all the more interesting. Strehler the brand was conceived as a deliberate act of restraint: same in-house manufacture, same level of finish, stripped of complications. The Sirna, the first model, was a time-only watch. The Säntis, named after the mountain that overlooks his Appenzell atelier, is the second, and it adds a world time display.

The case is 40mm wide, 9.7mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 47mm, and it's made in-house. A single crown at three o'clock controls everything: wind in the neutral position, city and 24-hour ring adjustment in the intermediate, time-setting fully extended. Water resistance is 30 meters. This is not a sports watch and makes no pretense of being one.

The dial is built in layers, with a machined, pattern-engraved, hand-polished titanium centre and three functional rings radiating outward. The outermost displays 24 time zones, with sun symbols marking DST-observing cities and the brand name anchoring CET on the ring. Inside that, the 24-hour ring splits day from night in the obvious way, with luminous printing. The minute track at the periphery has lume at five-minute intervals. Hour and minute hands in polished steel with arrow-shaped luminous tips stay legible against all of it. Dial, minute ring, and crown are available for personalisation; the city disc locations do not. Which is kind of awkward. I know the watches in the photos are likely prototypes, but I’ve seen them out with other media and in shows. That’s kind of a problem because the watches, and even the technical drawing of the watch on their website, misspells Sydney. I hope they fix that for production watches. 

The calibre SA-30W is the in-house automatic from the Sirna, modified to carry the world time module. Total component count is 224, beating rate is 21,600vph, and the balance is a free-sprung type with four adjustment screws, regulated by Strehler's own lever escapement. Power reserve is 60 hours. The skeletonised 18k gold rotor runs on ceramic ball bearings, visible through the sapphire caseback alongside the polished bevels, inward-angled chamfers, Geneva stripes, perlage, and finely grained wheels. The strap is brown calfskin from Ledertique and Atelier Petrov, lightly grained with off-white contrast stitching, fastened by an in-house pin buckle. Alternatives are available on request.

The Strehler Säntis is priced at CHF 24,750 excluding taxes. Annual output is planned 30 to 50 watches. See more on the Strehler website. 

5/

Konstantin Chaykin Might Have Made The Thinnest Watch In The World. Again.

When Konstantin Chaykin unveiled the ThinKing at Geneva Watch Days 2024, it was quite the shock — a 1.65mm-thin in-house watch from an independent Russian maker, dropping into the middle of a thinness arms race between Piaget, Bvlgari, and Richard Mille. Just one problem: it was a prototype, with no word on whether it would ever reach production. The prototype sold at Phillips in 2025 for CHF 508,000. Now comes the ThinKing Mystery: same 1.65mm profile, same in-house movement, but built for production in a series of 12. That makes it, by most accounts, the thinnest mechanical production watch in the world, edging out the Bulgari Octo Finissimo Ultra which comes in at 1.7mm. 

The case is 41mm wide and 1.65mm thick — a figure that requires a moment to process. For reference, that’s about 16 pieces of paper thick. Please, go find 16 pieces of paper just to get a feel for how thin that is. Chaykin uses a high-strength stainless steel alloy that undergoes intensive heat treatment to resist deformation, with tolerances measured in microns. The case alone passes through approximately 40 routing checkpoints during production, a process the brand likens to aerospace engineering rather than watchmaking. Chaykin doesn’t list a water resistance, but come on… 

The dial, such as it is, is a vertically brushed stainless steel surface with printed hour and minute markings around the perimeter of where the sapphire discs ride. The "Mystery" designation refers to a new feature added over the prototype: two 10.6mm sapphire discs, 0.2mm thick, that display the hours and minutes, with no support, seeming to rotate freely. Three rollers positioned around each disc guide their rotation without excessive energy drain. The effect is genuinely uncanny — two transparent discs turning on an impossibly flat plane, as if they have no mechanical reason to move at all. The Joker-inspired character of the original is preserved, though the expression here is almost meditative.

The in-house calibre K.23-3.1 runs at 18,000vph with a 38-hour power reserve — an improvement over the prototype's 32 hours, a consequence of the new drive system being more efficient. The movement winds via a special key, and a dedicated winding box is included. That box, measuring 47mm × 43mm × 9.2mm and comprising 112 components including its own safety reversing clutch. The entire watch weighs 12.1 grams without the strap. The strap is leather with titanium stiffeners and elastic inserts — patented — specifically designed to reduce stress on the case. 

The Konstantin Chaykin ThinKing Mystery is priced on demand, but it’s expected to be around CHF 400,000. Twelve pieces will be made. I can't post the KC link here, so you'll have to look for this one on your own. 

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Watch Worthy - A selection of reviews and first looks from around the web

• A review of the Tudor Monarch
• Hands on with the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Control Chronometre Perpetual Calendar

---------------------------------------------

If you would like to receive some additional watch-adjacent content, as well as this news overview, every morning Monday-Friday in the form of a newsletter feel free to subscribe. However, there is absolutely no need for you to subscribe, as all the news from the newsletter is posted here. It is only if you want to receive a couple of daily links that are not strictly watch-related an occasional long form article and possible giveaways.

It's Monday and I don’t know about you, but I had a great weekend roasting in the sun. In fact, it was such a roast I can barely live in my own scorched skin. Wear sunscreen, kids. Please.

If you like these updates, and would maybe like to subscribe to the newsletter so you get them in your inbox every day, you can do so by clicking here.

1/

TAG Heuer Releases A Formula 1 Watch To Mark The Indianapolis 500

In addition to taking over full sponsorship of Formula 1, TAG Heuer has been the official timekeeper of the Indianapolis 500 since 2004, and has released 17 limited editions to mark the occasion. Most have been Carreras or Autavias dressed for the occasion. This year they've done something a bit more interesting, and let the Indy 500 into their Formula 1 collection. The Indianapolis 500 is considered one of the most entertaining live races in the world, so it’s super interesting to see it paired up with something so F1 coded. Is there space for a future collaboration? 

This watch is built on the existing Formula 1 Solargraph, which means that it measures 38mm wide and 9.9mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 45.2mm. While the majority of the F1 collection is made out of Polylight bio-polyamide case (a.k.a. plastic, but durable plastic), this one is made out of brushed steel. What is made out of Polylight is the black bi-directional bezel with brown accent detail. Water resistance is 100 meters. 

The dial is black opaline, clean and uncluttered for the most part, with circular indices and TAG shield icons at 6, 9, and 12 o'clock. Indianapolis Motor Speedway's flying tire logo sits at 6 o'clock. The outer minutes track comes in a warm tobacco brown that ties to the bezel detail, a red seconds hand adds a dash of urgency, and there's a date window at 3 o'clock. The brick pattern referencing the Speedway's nickname, which typically appears on the dial, has been moved to the numbered caseback, which is cool.

Inside is the Calibre TH50-00, TAG's light-powered Solargraph movement, introduced last year, which needs about one minute of exposure to natural or artificial light to charge for a full day and holds power for up to 10 months on a full charge. The watch ships on a classic three-link steel bracelet with a folding clasp.

The TAG Heuer Formula 1 Solargraph x Indy 500 is limited to 1,110 pieces, reflecting the 110th running of the race. It's priced at $2,250 and available now. See more on the TAG Heuer website. 

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Timex And Aston Martin Team Up For A Very Aggressive Race Watch

Speaking of race-inspired watches, Aston Martin has teamed up with another watchmaker. Previously, we’ve seen them work with Breitling and Girard Perregaux, all of which were appropriately priced. Now, however, they’ve working with a more price accessible brand, one that’s been on quite a roll of collaborations — Timex. This is the new Aston martin TKS collection and it’s interesting.

The flagship TKS comes in a 42mm stainless steel case with an IP Podium Green treatment, matched to a coordinating bracelet. Water resistance is 100 meters. The crystal is described as sapphire-coated mineral glass. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure what that is.

The dial takes its visual cues from a car instrument cluster: layered construction, recessed sub-dials at 3 and 9 o'clock, and a hexagonal 24-hour indicator. A lime green stripe runs down the center of the dial and continues across the bracelet, without any color, and the hands and applied markers are faceted to suggest machined metal parts. It's a busy layout, but I can see how people might find it attractive.

The movement is a multifunctional Japanese quartz — no calibre specified in the press release, but I’m looking at that 24 hour indicator with a side eye. The collection includes several case variations: silver case with Bertelli Green strap, gunmetal case with blue silicone, and IP Black bracelet editions alongside the flagship Podium Green. Timex also offers a companion TKS2 bracelet in braided nappa leather with wing-engraved steel buckle hardware.

The Timex × Aston Martin TKS collection starts at $240 and tops out at $350. The leather TKS2 bracelet accessory is $110. See more on the Timex website. 

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Ralph Lauren Goes Full Preppy With The New Polo Bear Heritage Watch

Ralph Lauren is one of my guilty pleasures in the fashion watch arena. And I use fashion watch here not in a derogatory way, as you might read online when referring to brands like Boss or Armani, that license their name to no-name watch manufacturers cranking out $10 watches that sell for multiple hundreds. Ralph Lauren is one of those fashion brands that take their watches seriously. While certainly not on the level of a Louis Vuitton, RL has for years made watches in partnership with Richemont and have recently brought production back under their own control. And among their watches, my favorites have always been the Polo Bear ones. This new version, the Preppy Bear, leans hard into the collegiate character: navy blazer, repp tie, khakis. It's a character watch, unambiguously, and whether it works depends almost entirely on whether you find Ralph Lauren's whole aesthetic charming or insufferable.

The case is 42mm wide and 10.7mm thick in polished stainless steel, with a curved sapphire crystal on top and a closed caseback out back. Not much to this case. Water resistance is 50 meters — appropriate for a watch that spends more time on campus than in the ocean. The crown carries the Pony logo, which is a nice touch.

The dial base is off-white lacquer, and the printed Polo Bear sits at center, rendered slightly in three dimensions rather than printed flat. Black Arabic numerals and a printed minute track ring the outer edge, with shiny black lacquered hands for hour, minutes, and seconds. The bear is detailed — blazer, tie, sweater, the works.

Inside is a Sellita-based movement badged as the RL200 calibre, running at 28,800 vph with roughly 50 hours of power reserve. The watch ships with an interchangeable regimental stripe silk strap on brown Alsavel lining, 20mm at the lug, with a polished stainless pin buckle, entirely in keeping with the preppy brief.

The Ralph Lauren Preppy Bear Watch (ref. 472P23213001) is priced at CHF 1,650 and will be available from Spring 2026 at select Ralph Lauren stores. Keep an eye out on the Ralph Lauren website to see when it pops up. 

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Havid Nagan Releases The HN02, A Smaller, Sharper Watch From A Brand You Should Keep Your Eye On

Aren Bazerkanian launched Havid Nagan in 2022 with the HN00, a watch that was pretty clear on what it wants to be: architectural cases, layered surfaces, and a refusal to look like anything else on the market. The HN01 Lucine followed with a moonphase and the same bold geometry. Both were over 40mm and while they weren’t huge, they weren’t exactly on trend for smaller watches. Well, here we go, that’s been fixed with the HN02, a watch that keeps the same funky design language, but now in a more comfortable case.

The HN02 measures 38mm wide and 9mm thick, in Grade 5 titanium with a three-part case construction mixing brushed and polished surfaces. The biggest visual change from earlier models is the lugs: gone is the aggressive geometry of the HN00 and HN01, and it’s hooded lug, replaced with longer, more traditional lugs that flow naturally and make strap swaps straightforward. A DLC-treated version is available for those who want a darker finish. Water resistance sits at 50 meters.

Describing the dial is a project. The centerpiece is a flinqué enamel display — hand-engraved guilloché beneath translucent grand feu enamel — in either an Azure or Ember gradient, each requiring multiple high-temperature firings where any flaw means starting over. Three-dimensional indices and arrowhead hands sit above this surface. Around the periphery, a sapphire layer carries the minutes track, with polished spheres marking five-minute intervals. A subseconds dial sits at six. Encircling the central display is a three-part brass plate with a hammered silver finish. Below all of this, the movement's front plate glows in a warm galvanised gold. It sounds chaotic, but it’s almost understated and quite beautiful.

The movement is the AMT6600, previously used in the Classic One but reworked here with hammered bridges, polished anglage, and that same gold-galvanised mainplate visible through the display. It beats at 28,800vph and delivers around 62 hours of power reserve, with COSC certification. The watch ships on a leather strap suited to the redesigned lugs.

The HN02 is limited to 42 pieces across both dial variants and both case finishes, with deliveries beginning in Q3 2026. Orders require a 50% deposit. Price is set at $18,000. See more on the Havid Nagan website. 

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Daniel Roth Now Makes Their Super Thin Extra-Plat In Titanium

The Daniel Roth revival under La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton has been methodical to a fault: first the Tourbillon in yellow gold, rose gold, and platinum, now the Extra-Plat following the same sequence. Yellow gold came first, rose gold followed, and this platinum edition closes the trilogy. It’s a subtle update, but the watch itself is subtle in the best way possible.

The case retains its double-ellipse shape, measuring 38.6mm long, 35.5mm wide, 7.7mm thick. Sure, that adds just a bit more thickness to the original C107 Extra-Plat, but it’s still a slim dress watch. Platinum adds noticeable heft relative to the earlier editions but also a cooler, denser quality to the case finish. You get sapphire crystals front and back, and 30 meters of water resistance. 

While the yellow gold edition wore Clous de Paris guilloché; this one, like the rose gold, uses pinstripe guilloché (guilloché en ligne) — done in-house at La Fabrique du Temps. The chapter ring is rendered in silver to match the case, with black typography and a filet sauté border. Black gold hands point to the hours and minutes with no running seconds, and the whole thing has a cool monochromatic look. 

The calibre DR002 is hand-wound, developed by Michel Navas and Enrico Barbasini, running at 4Hz with a free-sprung balance wheel and 65 hours of power reserve. The finishing carries over from the Tourbillon's DR001 aesthetic: hand-polished bevels with bercé profile, black polished steel parts, thin Geneva stripes, perlage, polished countersinks. The watch comes on a light-tan leather strap.

The Daniel Roth Extra-Plat Platinum is priced at CHF 65,000, and that’s without taxes, available now. This is not a numbered limited edition, but it is constrained by production capacity. See more on the Daniel Roth website. 

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Watch Worthy - A selection of reviews and first looks from around the web

• A review of the Baltic Prismic Stone
• Hands on with the Nomos Club Sport Neomatik Worldtimer White Dial

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If you would like to receive some additional watch-adjacent content, as well as this news overview, every morning Monday-Friday in the form of a newsletter feel free to subscribe. However, there is absolutely no need for you to subscribe, as all the news from the newsletter is posted here. It is only if you want to receive a couple of daily links that are not strictly watch-related an occasional long form article and possible giveaways.

It's Friday and this edition was written on the road to the Croatian coast where I will shut off my computer the second I hit send and I’m ready to unwind. Finally.

If you like these updates, and would maybe like to subscribe to the newsletter so you get them in your inbox every day, you can do so by clicking here.

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Baltic And Space One Team Up On A One-Of-A-Kind Futuristic But Classic Jump Hour Watch

Pretty much all of my favorite watches from Geneva Watch Week were shown to me under embargo. That sucks, because I’ve seen some pretty cool things and we’ll have to wait quite some time to read about it. Thankfully, we didn’t have to wait that long for this one, perhaps the coolest watch I’ve seen at Chronopolis, the indie show in Geneva. Six years is a long time to spend on something that breaks convention this completely. The Seconde Majeure is a collaboration between French brands Baltic and SpaceOne, and the result is a watch that couldn't have come from either brand alone. Baltic's restraint keeps it wearable. SpaceOne's obsession with movements makes it unlike anything else at the price.

The case is 38.4mm wide and 12mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 47.5mm. That might sound large, but in real life it wears much smaller. I assume that’s a result of the very light and airy dial. The 316L stainless steel is treated to linear brushing across the mid-case, with a polished bezel and polished chamfers on the arched bevels. The crown sits at 12 o’clock, recessed flush into the case, hinting that this very classic case might be holding something quite unusual inside. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The dial is where this watch makes its case. Rather than the solid front panel and small apertures common in jump-hour watches, the Seconde Majeure uses stacked, off-centre transparent discs — jumping hours at the top, continuous minutes at the bottom — floating over the movement below. Time is displayed in two darkened windows at 12 and 6, but the layered, printed discs add depth and a futuristic dimensionality to the whole thing. This looks like it fell out of a fantastically art-directed sci-fi movie. The dial plate is made out of a single piece of maillechort — also known as German silver — and you can have it in one of two finishes. One is a rather straightforward vertical brushing. The other is just absolutely incredible, completely transforming the look of the watch and elevating it to something that could easily be haute horology. The second finish is called charbonné, a signature technique performed by expert watchmakers in Théo Auffret’s atelier. Done exclusively by hand, it requires up to three hours of work, giving each watch a truly unique character.

The movement is a Soprod P024 automatic, reliable, accurate, and known, but then modified with a bespoke jumping-hour module designed by Auffret. It beats at 28,800 vph with a 38-hour power reserve. It's hidden behind a solid engraved case back numbered to each watch, which is sensible given the P024's industrial looks. The strap is a light brown Alcantara from Delugs, with matching stitching, curved spring bars, and a steel pin buckle.

The Baltic x SpaceOne Seconde Majeure will go on sale Tuesday, May 12th at 4PM CET and the order window will be open until May 17th at 4PM CET. All orders placed in that window will be honored and deliveries are expected in November. Price is set at €3,500. See more on the Baltic website.

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Bravur Perfects Their Colors On The New Grand Tour Sprinter

I love it when a watch picks an unusual niche to live in. And no one does that better than Bravur, the Swedish watch brand that has gone all in on cycling watches. Over the past few years, they’ve released chronographs tied to specific Grand Tour races since the beginning of their Grand Tour series — the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France, and last we checked in, the La Vuelta III that completed the trilogy. Now, they are going somewhere different. The new Grand Tour Sprinter doesn't celebrate a race at all. It celebrates a role — the domestique-turned-weapon, the rider sheltered and saved for the final kilometer, then unleashed.

The case is stainless steel, 38.2mm wide, with a 46,3 mm lug to lug. Interestingly, Bravur doesn’t list the thickness of a watch. When’s the last time you saw a brand that gives you a L2L, but not a thickness? Quirky, I’m telling you. On top is a domed sapphire crystal, surrounded by a steel bezel that has a purple aluminum inlay. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The dial does what Bravur cycling dials always do well: layers of cycling iconography that feel designed rather than crammed in. The outer ring has that tarmac-like texture, the minute scale mimics the finish line motif, the 12 o'clock marker is shaped like the flamme rouge — the triangular red flag that signals one kilometer to go — and flanking the 1 o’clock baton marker you’ll find an almost invisible upside-down 13, a lucky charm Bravur puts on every Grand Tour chronograph. The most notable functional change is the 15-minute totalizer replacing the traditional 30-minute counter at 3:00, which Bravur says makes it better suited for interval training timing. 

Inside is the Sellita SW511 automatic chronograph, the same movement that powered the La Vuelta III. Bravur has fitted a custom rotor and the movement delivers over 60 hours of power reserve when fully wound. The Sprinter is available on a black rubber strap, a black perforated leather strap, or a matching steel bracelet.

The Bravur Grand Tour Sprinter is available to pre-order now with deliveries starting in June, priced at €2,550. See more on the Bravur website.

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MeisterSinger Continues Its 25th Anniversary Celebrations With New Unitas 1Z Edition

MeisterSinger, the brand mostly known for their one-hand time indication, has been having a lot of fun celebrating their 25th anniversary. For their latest release, they’ve gone back to one of the earliest and most important releases in their catalog: the Edition 1Z, first shown in 2004, which combined an enamel dial with a decorated Unitas pocket watch movement. The new Unitas 1Z Edition is a direct revival of that watch, limited to 25 pieces.

The case is new — built specifically to accommodate the oversized Unitas movement — and comes in at 40mm wide with brushed flanks and polished bezel and lugs. The crown is generously sized, fluted, and carries the brand's fermata logo on top. There's a display caseback engraved with the edition number. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The dial is real enamel, which means layers of finely ground enamel powder applied to a copper base and fired repeatedly at around 800°C until you get that luminous, slightly translucent white surface that no printed dial can replicate. Black double-digit hour indices run around the edge, with a peripheral minute scale marked at five-minute intervals and 30-minute intervals picked out in light blue. An inner ring of blue numerals tracks how many minutes have passed since the last full hour. A single heat-blued steel hand sweeps across all of it.

Inside is the Unitas 6497, a hand-wound calibre originally designed for pocket watches and rarely seen in modern wristwatches outside of a handful of independents. For this edition, the movement has been substantially reworked: the bridges are opened and redesigned, decorated with Geneva stripes and blued screws, and a swan-neck regulator has been added for fine adjustment. It beats at 21,600 vph and offers a 46-hour power reserve. The watch comes on an ice-blue leather strap with a crocodile pattern.

The MeisterSinger Unitas 1Z Edition is limited to 25 pieces and priced at €6,990. See more on the MeisterSinger website.

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Naoya Hida & Co. Teams Up With The Armoury For The Floating Feathers Reference Type 4A-2

There's a specific kind of collector that The Armoury attracts. The menswear boutique founded in Hong Kong by Mark Cho and Alan See — with a second location in New York — has always had an eye for objects that reward close attention. Their watch collaborations have been a natural extension of that. This is their third with Naoya Hida & Co., the Japanese independent founded in 2012 whose output centers on ultra-classic watches built on vintage Calatrava proportions. The first collaboration, the Type2C-1 Lettercutter, explored typographic engraving. This new one, the Floating Feathers Reference Type 4A-2, goes into the natural world.

The watch is based on the Type 4A case, built from 904L steel with polished surfaces and polished lateral bevels. At 36mm wide and 11mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 42.9mm, it’s pretty well proportioned. On top is a box-shaped sapphire crystal. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The dial is the showstopper. Made from hand-engraved Argentium silver — a tarnish-resistant silver alloy — it carries three feathers rendered in fine detail by Keisuke Kano, the brand's master engraver. Each feather has individual barbs and vane texture, with the bright polish of exposed silver visible underneath the bead-blasted surface. Surrounding the engraved field is an angled inner flange with 12 individually assembled hand-polished 18k yellow gold spherical minute markers. The hands are the elongated diamond-shaped solid 18k gold pair specific to the Type 4 collection, and a blued steel seconds hand with a caviar spoon counterweight completes the picture. The result is very beautiful.

Inside is calibre 3020CS, a hand-wound movement built around the gear train of the Valjoux 7750 — entirely reworked to remove the chronograph and automatic winding, leaving a clean centre seconds 3-hander. It runs a custom three-quarter plate and balance bridge, beats at 4Hz, and stores 45 hours of power reserve. The watch comes on a hand-stitched charcoal grey calf strap made by Jean Rousseau.

The Naoya Hida & Co. Reference Type 4A-2 Floating Feathers for The Armoury is limited to 10 pieces for 2026, with deliveries happening in 2027. Applications are accepted in-store only, at The Armoury's New York or Hong Kong boutiques, from May 17th to May 20th, 2026. Price is set at $33,000 / HKD 257,400. See more on The Armoury website.

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Girard-Perregaux Gives Us A Laureato Chronograph Two-Tone In Chocolate And Rose Gold

The Laureato is 50 years old this year, and Girard-Perregaux has been making the most of it. The latest entry in the anniversary run is a limited-edition chronograph in a two-tone steel and rose gold execution. The reference point is the original 1975 watch, which paired steel with a polished yellow gold bezel and a gold-capped insert running down the bracelet's central link. 

The case is 42mm wide and 12.16mm thick, made from 904L steel with a horizontal brushed finish and polished bevels. The rose gold bezel is circular-brushed, sitting on a polished round gold base, while the pushers, screw-down crown, and case accents are all polished rose gold. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The dial is chocolate brown with a full hobnail, a Clou de Paris-style guilloche that fills the entire surface, including the three sub-dial recesses. The sub-dials have wide concentric rings, and there's a date aperture at 4:30 with a brown background. Rose gold-plated baton indices float above the dial, matching the hour and minute hands, which carry white lume. The chronograph seconds hand and the sub-dial hands are plain gold-plated without lume. The combination of chocolate brown and rose gold is unapologetically rich — this isn't trying to be subtle.

Inside is the calibre GP 03300, a modular chronograph built on the GP 3000 base that has been running since 1994. The movement is 25.6mm in diameter and 6.5mm tall, which explains the case's contained profile. It beats at 28,800 vph with a 46-hour power reserve covering time, small seconds, chronograph, and date. The caseback has a sapphire porthole. The matching brown rubber strap carries the same hobnail texture as the dial down its centre and closes with a steel triple-folding clasp.

The new Laureato Chronograph 42mm is limited to 50 pieces, priced at €26,800. See more on the Girard-Perregaux website.

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Watch Worthy - A selection of reviews and first looks from around the web

• A review of the Tissot Visodate
• Hands on with the Tudor Black Bay 58 Black-Gilt

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If you would like to receive some additional watch-adjacent content, as well as this news overview, every morning Monday-Friday in the form of a newsletter feel free to subscribe. However, there is absolutely no need for you to subscribe, as all the news from the newsletter is posted here. It is only if you want to receive a couple of daily links that are not strictly watch-related an occasional long form article and possible giveaways.

It's Thursday and I will own a Mauron Musey one day. They’re huge, they’re wild, and I’m completely in love with them. 

If you like these updates, and would maybe like to subscribe to the newsletter so you get them in your inbox every day, you can do so by clicking here.

1/

Longines Teams Up With The Commonwealth Games For Another Limited Edition HydroConquest

Longines has been timing the Commonwealth Games since 1962, which makes this kind of release practically tradition at this point, considering the fact the games happen every four years. The HydroConquest Commonwealth Games 2026 is the latest in a line of event-tied editions, following the Birmingham 2022 version, and it's built on the newly redesigned slimmer HydroConquest that debuted earlier this year.

The case comes in your choice of 39mm or 42mm wide, both measuring 11.7mm thick, in brushed stainless steel with a screw-down crown and sapphire crystal. The unidirectional rotating bezel uses a black ceramic insert with teal numerals and the obligatory lume capsule at 12 o'clock, and the caseback is engraved with the official Glasgow 2026 logo alongside a "Limited Edition – One of 2026" inscription. Water resistance is 300 meters.

The dial is where the (un)official Glasgow color scheme comes into play: the official palette of Steel Grey, Turquoise, Pink, and Purple is translated into a teal-to-black gradient, with the Longines signature rendered in violet and the central seconds hand tipped in pink. Rhodium-plated hands and applied geometric indices carry Super-LumiNova, which keeps things legible despite everything going on. There's a date window outlined in white at 3 o'clock.

Inside is Longines calibre L888.5, the brand's ETA 2892-based automatic that has been significantly upgraded with a silicon balance spring for improved antimagnetic resistance. It beats at 25,200 vph and offers a 72-hour power reserve. The watch ships on a black rubber strap with a double-folding clasp and micro-adjustment.

Available from May 2026, the HydroConquest Commonwealth Games 2026 is limited to 2,026 pieces in each size, priced at €2,300, regardless of the size you choose. See more on the Longines website.

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Depancel Allure Mono Eye Brings Bold Colours To An Affordable Retro Chronograph

Depancel has been making the Allure in various configurations for a while now, and the French brand has found a lane that suits them: retro-influenced chronographs with motorsport detailing, sold at a price that doesn't require a second mortgage. The new Allure Mono Eye is the latest in that line, now available in five dial colours with the single sub-dial layout that gives the watch its name.

The stainless steel case comes in at 39mm wide, 11.5mm thick, and 45.8mm lug-to-lug. Those are well-proportioned numbers for this kind of watch. Finishing is a mix of brushed and polished surfaces with a red accent band on the crown. Could have been cool if these were matched to the dial. On top is a K1 mineral crystal, which is the one downside that one might point out. Water resistance is 50 meters.

Five dials are available: red, blue, and orange stand out for their vividness, while mint green and off-white are just a bit more subdued. Each one is structured the same way — a large colored ring around a central black sunburst section with a pulsometer scale, a 60-second subdial at nine o'clock (the "mono eye"), and a tachymeter ring at the outer edge. The red chronograph hand ties everything together. Applied hour markers are polished and lume-filled.

Inside is the Seiko VK64 mechaquartz, which combines quartz timetelling with a mechanical chronograph module. The practical upside is obvious — you get a satisfying clunk from the pushers and a proper sweeping chrono hand, alongside quartz-accurate timekeeping and a battery life of around 36 months under normal use. Each watch ships with a choice of a textured black FKM rubber strap or a black perforated racing-style bull leather strap. .

The Depancel Allure Mono Eye is available now, priced at €495. See more on the Depancel website. 

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Beaucroft Releases The Contour GMT With A Tropical Teal Dial

Cambridge-based Beaucroft has been building a reputation on the back of their Element, a watch that impressed with its wearablility — the 39.5mm diameter and 46.5mm lug-to-lug kept it from being yet another microbrand that doesn’t take the lug-to-lug into account. The newly released Contour GMT is their first complication, and the smart money would have been on them not overcomplicating the jump. They didn't.

The case carries over the Element's DNA almost entirely: 39.5mm wide, 46.5mm lug-to-lug, made out of 316L stainless steel. The only real change is a 0.9mm increase in thickness to 12.6mm, which is a fair trade for adding a GMT module. The case features a blend of polished, brushed, and bead-blasted surfaces with a scratch-resistant coating rated at 1,200–1,300 Vickers. A sapphire box-style crystal sits on top with three layers of AR coating. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The dial comes in the Tropical Teal colorway, and it’s handsome enough. But the cool thing is how they’ve handled the GMT complication. Rather than the conventional chapter ring printed with a 24-hour scale, Beaucroft has buried it around a central sunburst disc, allowing for a shorter GMT hand and no day/night shading. The ring has a ribbed texture that gives it just enough visual presence. There's no date window, which many believe to be blasphemous on a GMT but I love, and the applied polished hour markers sit on a second dial plate layered over the base.

The movement is the Miyota calibre 9075, which is one of the rare affordable and mass-accessible traveler-style GMT movement, which means that you can sent the local 

side is the very familiar Miyota 9075, which allows the wearer to jump the local hour hand, meaning that it’s a “true” or flyer-style GMT movement. It beats at 28,800 vph, 4Hz and has a power reserve of about 42 hours. It’s also regulated to ±10 seconds per day. The steel three-link bracelet shares the scratch-resistant coating of the case, includes micro-adjustment on the folding clasp, and uses quick-release spring bars for easy strap swapping.

The Beaucroft Contour GMT is priced at £795 / US$899 and is available now for pre-order. Deliveries are expected in September. See more on the Beaucroft website.

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Norqain Gives The Wild One Skeleton A Transparent Chronograph

Norqain has been releasing Wild One variants at a steady clip — the purple skeleton last year, the meteorite dial before that, a smaller size somewhere in between. So many, in fact, that I often miss what’s new from them. Like, for example, this Wild One Skeleton Chrono that came out almost a month ago, with a interesting catch: it brings the flyback chronograph movement first seen in the 2024 Independence into the Wild One's Norteq cage, opening that complication up to a more sport-forward audience. Three variants at are available at launch, one of which wraps the whole thing in 18k red gold, because why not.

The case is 42mm wide and 13.6mm thick, built from Norqain's proprietary Norteq carbon fibre composite with a titanium inner container for the movement and rubber shock absorbers rated to 5,000g of impact resistance. The standard edition pairs a black Norteq cage with turquoise accents; the second, limited to 400 pieces, swaps in burgundy Norteq. The red gold edition — 75 pieces — uses a PX Impact 18k red gold cage over a black Norteq caseback with grey shock absorbers and gold and grey accents. Water resistance is 200 meters.

In place of a conventional dial, you get the movement exposed on both sides. Two transparent discs float over the calibre at 12 and six o'clock for the 30-minute counter and running seconds, with printed pointer arrows instead of hands on the sub-dials. A mountain silhouette bridge crosses the dial; the flange carries a pulsometer scale for heart rate monitoring and a chapter ring with applied, diamond-cut indices treated with Super-LumiNova. The central seconds hand gets a lumed arrow tip. It's busy, but it's meant to be.

The movement is the AMT-developed flyback chronograph built on a heavily modified Sellita SW500 base, with a column wheel, COSC chronometer certification, and a 62-hour power reserve. I've said before that Norqain's proprietary claim on this calibre is fairly well-earned given the extent of the modifications. The watch ships on a rubber strap with a choice of pin buckle or folding clasp.

The Wild One Skeleton Chrono starts at CHF 7,200 for the standard black version and CHF 7,300 for the burgundy 400-piece edition; the red gold reference comes in at CHF 18,950. See more on the Norqain website. 

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Mauron Musy Debuts Its First In-House Movement, First Integrated Bracelet, In The New, Smaller, NODE°

I've written about Mauron Musy quite a few times because I really, really do like them, but every time I've had to add a small caveat: the watches are spectacular, but they are big. The Architect runs 44mm wide and it's not a watch that works on everyone's wrist. I can pull it off, but I have rhino wrists. The new NODE° doesn't change the design language, it doesn't change the engineering philosophy — it just makes the brand's world available to a wider group of people. At 41mm, it's the smallest Mauron Musy watch to date, and it comes loaded with firsts: the brand's first in-house movement, and their first integrated bracelet.

The NODE° case is grade 5 titanium, 41mm wide and 12.8mm thick, with the same bolted construction that distinguishes every Mauron Musy case. The nO-Ring gasket-free sealing system — where the precision-machined case components press together so tightly that no rubber seal is needed to keep the water out — provides 200 meters of water resistance here. There are double domed sapphire crystals front and back, with a screw-down crown on the side.

The dial is semi-open, and Mauron Musy uses the open space deliberately. The angular balance bridge at nine o'clock sits on view like a display piece, the movement's architecture becoming part of the visual composition rather than a separate attraction visible only through the caseback. Small seconds at seven, with the balance wheel itself visible to the left. Three options: blue with a brushed finish, grey and silver both with a grainé texture. All of them look excellent in the press images.

Inside is Calibre MM03, Mauron Musy’s first proprietary movement. It's a micro-rotor automatic — the rotor is a ball-bearing mounted tungsten micro-rotor — measuring 5.5mm thick and working at 28,800 vph with 32 jewels set in traditional chatons and a free-sprung balance with inertia screws. Power reserve is 96 hours. The integrated bracelet is machined from the same grade 5 titanium as the case, with brushed surfaces contrasted against polished hexagonal link accents and a butterfly clasp. An additional rubber strap with folding clasp is included.

The Mauron Musy NODE° is a limited production of 300 pieces per year, priced at CHF 48,000. See more on the Mauron Musy website.

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Watch Worthy - A selection of reviews and first looks from around the web

• A review of the Nivada Grenchen Antarctic Erotic
• Hands on with the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Control Chronometre Perpetual Calendar

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If you would like to receive some additional watch-adjacent content, as well as this news overview, every morning Monday-Friday in the form of a newsletter feel free to subscribe. However, there is absolutely no need for you to subscribe, as all the news from the newsletter is posted here. It is only if you want to receive a couple of daily links that are not strictly watch-related an occasional long form article and possible giveaways.

It's Wednesday and man, Mido is really building out a solid base of watches. I know it’s inevitable that they will go up in price, but until they do, right now, they might be in my top 3 brands I would recommend as starter watches.

If you like these updates, and would maybe like to subscribe to the newsletter so you get them in your inbox every day, you can do so by clicking here.

1/

Casio Addresses The Biggest Problem Of Its First Mechanical Watch, But In Which Direction?

Last year, when Casio released the EFK-100D, I had real problems with it. The watch itself was fine — sapphire crystal, integrated bracelet, 100 meters, decent proportions. But inside, Casio had fitted a Seiko NH35, a movement that's perfectly respectable in a microbrand. But when Casio announced its first-ever mechanical watch, I was expecting a bit more effort in the movement arena. With the EFK-110D, Casio has corrected course, but in which direction.

The stainless steel case comes in just slightly from the previous generation, now measuring 38mm wide and 11.80mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 43mm. Those are good numbers, even though they could have made an effort to keep it under 11mm thickness. The mix of mirror-polished and brushed surfaces carries over from the EFK-100D, as does the slim polished bezel. Water resistance holds at 100 meters, and the integrated H-link bracelet remains. It's a coherent, modern-looking sports watch.

The dial keeps the electroformed forged carbon texture, which catches light well and gives the surface some actual visual interest at close range. Three colors are available at launch: black, blue, and white. The date has been moved from 6 to 3 o'clock. Applied indices, skeletonized hands, minimal text. "Edifice Casio" at 12, "Automatic" above 6. Clean and unfussy.

Inside, we get the biggest change. Gone is the off-the-shelf Seiko movement, replaced with… another off-the-shelf movement. You get the Miyota 8215, a Japanese automatic that beats at 21,600 vph, runs 42 hours on a full wind, and carries 21 jewels. It's not flashy, but it's a reasonable. I’m not sure what I was expecting. It’s unreasonable to expect Casio to spin up their own movement production, I guess, so this might be the next best thing. It’s still kind of lacking for me. It is a bit thinner than the Seiko, so there’s that. 

The Casio Edifice EFK-110D collection is on sale now, priced at a very good €279. See more on the Casio website. 

2/

Mido Gives Us A Simple And Effective Black And White Ocean Star GMT

What’s there not to like with Mido? Not only do they make some of the most avant-garde designed watches among the big brands, they also know how to make a very sensible watch. Like, for example, their Ocean Star GMT which has been around since 2020, as one of the more accessible traveller's GMT watches on the market. Now, it’s getting a new colorway. 

The case is 44mm wide in stainless steel, with a lug-to-lug of 50.1mm — big, and worth knowing before you try it on. Mido mixes satin-brushed and polished surfaces across the case, fit with a screw-down crown and caseback for 200 meters of water resistance. On top is a unidirectional black ceramic bezel ring with white markings and a luminous pip at 12. The back is engraved with time zones, which is a nice touch.

On the dial, the move to black and white is clean and high-contrast. Applied indices, white Super-LumiNova on the hands and markers, an orange GMT hand pointing to a split-tone 24-hour flange — dark for night, white for day. A central seconds hand with an orange tip ties it together, and a date window sits at 3 o'clock. 

Inside, you’ll find the Mido calibre 80, based on ETA's C07.661, beating at 21,600 vph with an 80-hour power reserve. The Nivachron balance spring gives it solid resistance to magnetism and shocks. The watch comes on a black textile strap with white stitching, which matches the dial.

The Ocean Star GMT is priced at €1,350, available now. See more on the Mido website. 

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The Bulova Lunar Pilot Black Hole Might Be The Darkest Version Of A Space Watch, Now In A Smaller Case

Dave Scott wore a Bulova chronograph on the Moon during Apollo 15. He strapped it to his wrist after his issued NASA watch, the other famous moon watch, lost a crystal during a moon walk, and he used it for the EVA. While Bulova has certainly not milked that story as much as Omega milked their NASA history, they still remember that story fondly with the Lunar Pilot line. It seems that the latest Lunar Pilot Black Hole might be the most extreme version they've done yet.

While Bulova boasts about the new dial, the bigger story might be the new case. It’s till cushion shaped as you might expect from the Lunar Pilot, but it’s also much smaller than previous versions. Not small, but smaller. It’s 41mm wide, 13.05mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 48mm. The whole thing — case and bracelet — has been coated in black PVD over a sandblasted finish, giving it a uniform matte appearance. Crown, pushers, and bezel ring are finished in a glossy black contrast, which keeps the monochrome look without making it feel flat. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The "Black Hole" name comes from the dial material: Musou black coating, a paint developed in Japan known for absorbing almost all light. The result is a backdrop that is supposed to look like a voide into nothingness. Against it, the grey applied indices and hands are treated with Super-LumiNova that glows blue in low light. The chronograph layout is a standard tri-compax with a 60-minute counter at nine and running seconds opposite. At three o'clock, the chronograph displays time to 1/20th of a second. There's also an internal tachymeter scale sitting under the sapphire crystal.

Power comes from Bulova's proprietary NP20 high-precision quartz, running at 262,144 Hz compared to the standard 32,768 Hz in a typical quartz calibre. That frequency difference translates to accuracy measured in seconds per year rather than seconds per day. The NP20 also drives the chronograph seconds hand with a smooth sweep rather than the step-tick of a conventional quartz chrono. The watch comes on a black PVD stainless steel bracelet with a deployment clasp.

The Bulova Lunar Pilot Black Hole is limited to 6,000 pieces and delivered in a presentation box with a travel clock. The caseback carries a commemorative medallion referencing Dave Scott and Apollo 15, protected by a mineral glass insert. Price is set at $1,650. See more on the Bulova website. 

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Kudoke Brings The Tremblage Dials To The Kudoke 1 And Kudoke 2

Stefan Kudoke has been making a strong case for German independent watchmaking for years — his Kudoke 2 won the Petite Aiguille at the GPHG in 2019, and the Revolution collaboration brought a lot of new eyes to the brand. These new tremblage dial options for the Kudoke 1 and 2 are the kind of move that makes sense for where Kudoke sits: not a mainstream brand trying to add prestige, but a genuine maker going deeper into technique.

Both models share the same 39mm wide stainless steel case, with sapphire crystals front and back. Where they differ is thickness — the Kudoke 1 comes in at 9.5mm thick, the Kudoke 2 at 10.7mm — and that extra millimeter is taken up by the day/night display complication of the Kudoke 2. Water resistance on both is 50 meters.

The tremblage finish is the point of this release. The technique involves thousands of individual hand movements with a graver across the dial surface, producing a texture that absorbs rather than reflects light. The result is a matte, almost velvety appearance. Kudoke does the entire process in-house, including the electroplating. Three galvanic finishes are available: yellow gold, black rhodium, and white rhodium, and because it's all done by hand, no two dials are exactly the same. On the Kudoke 1, applied rhodium-plated elements contrast against the textured ground; on the Kudoke 2, the tremblage surface works underneath the signature celestial motif at 12 o'clock, adding visual depth without competing with the day/night indication.

The Kudoke 1 runs on Kaliber 1, a manual-winding movement beating at 28,800 vph with a 46-hour power reserve and small seconds at 9 o'clock. The Kudoke 2 has Kaliber 1-24h, the same base with the additional day/night complication. Both watches can be ordered on leather or Alcantara straps with a stainless steel buckle.

The tremblage treatment adds €3,750 to either base model. That brings the Kudoke 1 Tremblage to €12,391 and the Kudoke 2 Tremblage to €14,451, both excluding VAT. Available now directly from Kudoke. 

5/

Chronoswiss Releases The Delphis Art Deco And Neo Digiteur Chronos

Chronoswiss has been one of the most reliable sources of genuinely strange watches for decades — regulators, wild colors, engravings, unusual case shapes — and lately they've been in particularly fine form. For 2026, they're releasing two watches at opposite ends of their range: the Delphis Art Deco, which is the kind of maximalist dial work the brand does as well as anyone, and the Neo Digiteur Chronos, which takes last year's revival and turns it into a 33-piece solid gold statement with a hand-engraved Chronos on the cover. Let's take them in order.

The Delphis Art Deco comes in a Grade 5 titanium case, 42mm wide and 14.4mm thick, with the brand's signature knurled bezel edge, striated onion crown, and matte grained finish. On top is a double domed sapphire crystal with an anti-reflective coating, and out back is a flat sapphire caseback, while water resistance is 100 meters. The dial is nickel-coated and laser-structured for a subtle grained texture in soft grey, and from there it gets busier in the best way. The jumping hours sit in a deep rectangular aperture engraved into the dial at noon. Retrograde minutes sweep across an arched track in the upper half, marked with Art Deco-style black numerals on a gold-plated railway track, indicated by a metallic blue PVD-coated aluminium hand that snaps back on the hour. A double-arched openworked bridge divides the dial, and below it, the small seconds subdial is hand-guilloché in-house using century-old machines, filled with Art Deco Blue lacquer. 

The movement is La Joux-Perret calibre C. 6004, automatic, beating at 28,800vph, with 55 hours power reserve, and with an openworked tungsten rotor shaped to echo the dial's bridge architecture and ruthenium-plated components. It comes on a soft black nubuck strap. The Delphis Art Deco is a limited edition of 150 pieces, priced at €15,900. See the watch here.

Then we have the Neo Digiteur Chronos which uses the same case architecture as last year's steel edition — that arcing rectangular shape, 48mm long, 30mm wide, 9mm high — but now executed in solid 5N gold at 65 grams, with a brightly polished bezel framing the hand-engraved cover. The engraving depicts the face of the god Chronos surrounded by Greek meander and wave-scroll patterns, with a scythe on the right side, and because it's done by hand at the Lucerne atelier, no two pieces are identical. The signature Chronoswiss onion crown appears in a miniaturised, reshaped form on the case flank.

Time is read through three apertures: jumping hours at 12, dragging digital minutes at center, and sweeping seconds at 6 — the same regulator-inflected layout Lang established in the original Digiteur. Power comes from calibre C.85757, a hand-wound movement on a Peseux architecture running at 21,600vph with a 48-hour reserve, fitted with a proprietary Digiteur module to absorb the energy spikes of the jumping hours mechanism and keep the minute and second discs smooth. The wheel bridge gets hand-guilloché on gold plating. It comes on a black nubuck strap with a meander pattern on the interior and a red gold pin buckle.

The Neo Digiteur Chronos is a limited edition of 33 pieces, priced at €63,000. See more on the Chronoswiss website. 

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Watch Worthy - A selection of reviews and first looks from around the web

• A review of the Oris Star Edition
• Hands on with the Chopard L.U.C 1860 In Aeruse Blue

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If you would like to receive some additional watch-adjacent content, as well as this news overview, every morning Monday-Friday in the form of a newsletter feel free to subscribe. However, there is absolutely no need for you to subscribe, as all the news from the newsletter is posted here. It is only if you want to receive a couple of daily links that are not strictly watch-related an occasional long form article and possible giveaways.

It's Tuesday and I’m just a bit sad that Baltic didn’t do a new pass on the Scalegraph for the Tour Auto, but I kind of dig them sticking with their guns to make the dash mounted instruments. Very French of them.

If you like these updates, and would maybe like to subscribe to the newsletter so you get them in your inbox every day, you can do so by clicking here.

1/

Seiko Adds Two More Colors To The Prospex 1968 Heritage Diver GMT Collection

A couple of years ago, Seiko launched a watch inspired by the 1968 Hi-Beat 300m diver and gave it a GMT movement, a surprising first for a Seiko diver. It was a great looking watch, but people pointed out two major downsides — it had less water resistance than the original from more than 50 years its senior, and used the same impractical clasp while so many other brands moved forward. Late last year, Seiko introduced a new version of the Prospex Diver which fixes these downsides. Now, we’re getting two more colors to add to the Prospex 1968 Heritage Diver GMT collection.

Like most Prospex Divers, this new one is a chunky watch, but not oversized to the point of being unwearable. The stainless steel case measures 42mm wide, 13.3mm thick and has a 48.6mm lug-to-lug. The case has brushed top surfaces and huge polished chamfers on the sides, and the entire surface has a hard coating. On top is a sapphire crystal, surrounded by a unidirectional bezel that has either a green or black insert with a fully graduated 60 minute scale, and the crown sits at 4 o’clock. This is the new Prospex case which has 300 meters of water resistance.

And just like a couple of the Prospex divers we’ve seen recently, these two models don’t come with the expected wave-pattern dials. Instead, both have sunray brushed dials, the HBC001 in a great green and the HBC002 in black. That’s surrounded by a flange that has a very discreet 24h scale. The applied markers get a lot of lume, just like the faceted hands, and it has a sort of light blue appearance on the HBC002. There’s a date aperture at 4:30.

Inside, you’ll still find the calibre 6R54, beating at 3Hz and with a 72 hour power reserve. Seiko claims accuracy of +25 to -15 seconds per day, but these results are usually much, much better. The watch comes on a 3-link bracelet that now has the new micro-adjustment system on the clasp. 

The new Seiko Prospex 1968 Heritage Diver GMT 300m HBC001 and HBC002 are part of the regular collection, going on sale in May worldwide. Price remains a controversial €1,900. See more on the Seiko website here and here. 

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The Union Glashütte Belisar Chronograph Moon Phase Skeleton in Steel & Blue

One of the reasons why it’s so easy to love Union Glashütte is their incredibly wide and often bizarre breadth of their collection. Take, for example, the Belisar Chronograph Moon Phase. Already an interesting watch, made completely different with a new skeletonized appearance. 

The original Belisar Chronograph Moon Phase was a chonker of a watch that measured 44mm wide 15.3mm thick. Then last year, we got a smaller, but still significantly large, version, and this skeletonized model is based on the same case. The steel case is 42mm wide and 14.8mm thick. It comes with a brushed finish that has a couple of polished surfaces, including the rounded bezel that holds down the sapphire crystal. Despite shrining in size, it hasn’t lost its recognizable screwed case flanks that give the side of the case a bit of character. Water resistance is still 100 meters.

Then we have a new dial that’s maybe a bit busier, but also more interesting, perhaps. The dial is now cut away in a hexagonal pattern inspired by old car radiator grilles. It shows more of the movement underneath and gives the watch a more technical, industrial look. It has a sloping inner bezel that houses the date ring, Arabic numerals at the cardinal points and a tri-compax setup of sub-dials. At 12 o’clock is the 30-minute chronograph counter with triangular apertures for day and month indications, at 9 o’clock are the running seconds and at 6 o’clock is the moon phase with a gold-coloured moon on a starry blue sky and a 12-hour chronograph counter. All the indices are applied and treated with Super-LumiNova. 

Inside is the automatic calibre UNG-25.S1. It’s based on the legendary ETA 7751 chronograph, but heavily modified by Union Glashütte. Apart from adding the moon phase and pinter date functions, they also decorated the movement with a striped ball-bearing rotor adorned with a logo cut-out, perlage on the main plate and blued screws. You can expect a power reserve of 65 hours. The watch comes on a stainless steel bracelet with a double-folding clasp.

The new Belisar Chronograph Moon Phase Skeleton Steel Blue is part of the permanent collection and is priced at €3,700 including VAT. See more on the Union Glashütte website. 

3/

Baltic Continues To Sponsor The Tour Auto, Now With A Dash Mounted Stopwatch/Clock Combo

The Tour Auto is one of those rallies that you know if you are really nerdy about racing. I learned about it last year, and that’s only because of Baltic’s collaboration with the rally. The Tour Auto is inspired by the Tour de France Automobile, created in 1899 by the Automobile Club de France. It takes almost 300 crews, all driving pre-1985 cars, on a 2000+ kilometer tour from Paris to Nice, with stops at iconic racetracks where the teams will race for real. And last year, for the third time in a row, Baltic, the very French brand, served as the official timekeeper of the race. To mark that occasion, they launched a limited edition Scalegraph, a very cool racing chronograph that was a huge hit for the brand. So, since they remain a sponsor of the event, it was expected that Baltic would release a new version of the chronograph. But oh no, they’re coming out with something way different — a set of stopwatches that you can mount into your pre-1985 rally car. Weird? Sure. Cool? Incredibly. 

This isn’t a regular wrist watch, of course, but the set does come with two time-telling devices. What you receive are two identical steel-cased stop-watch-like devices. Both are made out of 316L stainless steel, measuring 60mm wide and 18mm thick. Both have a heavily domed hesalite and casebacks engraved with a route of the race on one and the logo of the race on the other, both with individually numbered engravings out of 300. What you’re esentially getting is a stopwatch powered by a Hanhart manual-winding movement with a “flyback” function and a matching dashclock 

Both devices share the same base dial color, inspired by the historic colours of the Tour de France Automobile, which is a very light matte blue. Both also have cream subdials — the stopwatch for tracking the 30 minute timer and the clock for the small seconds. 

Inside the stopwatch is the manual wind Hanhart 122 flyback stopwatch movement that has a 6 hour power reserve. The clock gets the manual wind ENLOONG 6497, and despite a cursory Google search, I have no idea what this is. It does have a 42 hour power reserve, though. The timekeepers, of course, don’t come on straps, but they do come with a steel dash mount. 

The new Rally Timer Tour Auto 2026 is a limited edition of 300 pieces, available now, priced at €825, without taxes. See more on the Baltic website. 

4/

Panerai Goes Fully Technical With The Submersible GMT PAM01495 And Its 3D-Printed Case

Panerai has been covering a lot of ground at Watches & Wonders 2026. So much, in fact, that I have been missing releases left and right. On one end of their release barrage: historically-inspired Luminor pieces with vintage details and restrained displays. On the other: the new Submersible GMT PAM01495, which shares nothing of that spirit. This is 47mm of contemporary Panerai, going full technical — a 3D-printed titanium case, openworked dial, and a GMT movement with tricks under the hood. I love when Panerai puts effort into their watches

The case is made through a process called Titanium DMLS, which stands for Direct Metal Laser Sintering — Grade 5 titanium powder fused layer by layer, allowing for internal cavities that cut weight significantly versus conventional titanium construction. This is, of course, not the first and not the last titanium 3D-printed watch out there, but it’s still cool. The result is 47mm wide watch, water-resistant to 500 meters, with sapphire crystals on both sides and a matte blue unidirectional ceramic bezel. The case is Panerai's signature cushion-shaped body with the trademark crown protection device — familiar silhouette, unusual construction.

The dial is a grid-like openwork, with large applied hour markers set in a flange around the perimeter. The hands are openworked and luminous. There's a lot going on at the subdial level: hours and minutes centrally, a small seconds at nine o'clock with an AM/PM indicator, a central GMT hand, and a polarised date display at three. This is Panerai's own patented system where the date disc is essentially transparent across the movement, with the number appearing only through the aperture using polarized lenses. It's a clever thing.

Inside is the calibre P.4001/S, automatic, wound by a tungsten micro-rotor. The GMT function is a true traveller's GMT, with the local hour hand advancing and retreating in one-hour jumps independently of the minutes. There's also a seconds reset function via the crown. Power reserve is three days, with an indicator on the caseback. The watch comes on a blue rubber strap, with a black bi-material strap included as well.

The Panerai Submersible GMT PAM01495 is available exclusively through Panerai boutiques from May 2026, priced at €49,000 including taxes. See more on the Panerai website.

5/

Arnold & Son Returns To The Ultrathin Tourbillon With An Onyx Dial In Red Gold And Platinum

Back in 2023, at Watches & Wonders, Arnold & Son launched the Ultrathin Tourbillon with an opaline dial. This yeah, at the same show, they've released the Onyx version of the Ultrathin Tourbillon in black onyx in both red gold and platinum cases. Onyx is a variety of agate from the chalcedony family, and the dial Arnold & Son has made from it is dark and fathomless in a way that synthetic black dials simply are not.

The case remains unchanged from the post-2022 models: 41.5mm wide, 8.4mm thick including the domed sapphire crystal, framed by a very slim bezel. Those cases can be had in either 18k red gold or 950 platinum, and despite them being fully dress-style watches, they come with 30 meters of water resistance.

The architecture of the dial still mirrors the layout of John Arnold's marine chronometers, with hours and minutes dedicated to a sub-dial at 12 o'clock and the tourbillon aperture sitting at 6. Both sub-dial and main dial are in onyx, but the material is treated differently — the main dial is polished to a high sheen while the sub-dial gets a matte satin finish. The marine inspiration behind Arnold & Son is visible on the tourbillon: the cage that holds it is shaped like a sextant, the double-arrow counterweight represents an anchor, and the yellow gold flying bridge is hand-engraved with plant motifs that echo the decorative work on John Arnold's pocket watches. Framed in a gold or platinum ring matching the case, the tourbillon aperture is the only warmth in an otherwise very dark watch.

The in-house A&S8300 calibre — introduced in 2022 and still measuring just 2.97mm thick — remains one of the thinnest tourbillon movements available. Its 32mm diameter gives full view of the finishing: radiating Côtes de Genève, snailing on the double-barrel ratchet wheels, polished blued screws. Power reserve is 100 hours. Both versions come on alligator straps with folding clasps.

The Arnold & Son Ultrathin Tourbillon Onyx is limited to 8 pieces in red gold at CHF 74,600 and 8 pieces in platinum at CHF 85,400, both prices inclusive of tax. See more on the Arnold & Son website. 

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Watch Worthy - A selection of reviews and first looks from around the web

• A review of the Citizen Eco-Drive Photon
• Hands on with the Patek Philippe Ref. 5236P-011

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If you would like to receive some additional watch-adjacent content, as well as this news overview, every morning Monday-Friday in the form of a newsletter feel free to subscribe. However, there is absolutely no need for you to subscribe, as all the news from the newsletter is posted here. It is only if you want to receive a couple of daily links that are not strictly watch-related an occasional long form article and possible giveaways.

It's Monday and I’m off to the coast this weekend and I’ve been thinking about dive watches lately… that Certina would look great on my wrist. Certina, if you’re listening… you know where to find me. 

If you like these updates, and would maybe like to subscribe to the newsletter so you get them in your inbox every day, you can do so by clicking here.

1/

Grand Seiko’s Two New Spring Drives; The SBGY043 Iwao Blue For The Wrist, The SBGZ011 For The Safe

Grand Seiko brought two new Spring Drive references to Watches & Wonders this year, and I kind of missed them in my initial reporting. The SBGY043 Iwao Blue is an Elegance Collection addition — restrained, wearable, the kind of watch you could wear every day. The SBGZ011 is a 50-piece platinum Masterpiece from the Micro Artist Studio in Shiojiri, hand-engraved, inspired by a waterfall, priced at €86,000. 

The SBGY043 case is 38.5mm wide and 10.2mm thick, in stainless steel with Zaratsu polishing alternating with brushed surfaces and a dual-curved sapphire crystal. The SBGZ011 uses the iconic 44GS case, here rendered in platinum at 40mm wide and 9.6mm thick, with the angular lugs Zaratsu-polished and the remaining surfaces hand-engraved with small indentations meant to evoke flowing water.

The Iwao Blue dial comes in a deep indigo — Katsuiro, historically associated with samurai armour — over a textured rock pattern that catches light from different angles. You get diamond-cut applied markers and faceted dauphine hands and no date. The SBGZ011's dial goes further: also hand-engraved with waterfall motifs, with hour and minute hands plus applied markers all in 14k white gold. 

Both watches run on manual-winding Spring Drive movements. The SBGY043 uses calibre 9R31 with a dual-spring barrel and 72-hour power reserve, accurate to ±1 second per day. The SBGZ011 uses the 9R02 — the thinnest Spring Drive calibre built, 4mm, developed exclusively for Micro Artist Studio pieces — delivering an 84-hour power reserve via a dual mainspring and torque-return system. The SBGY043 comes on a nine-link brushed and polished steel bracelet; the SBGZ011 ships with a black crocodile strap and platinum clasp, plus a Kyoto leather strap as a second option.

The SBGY043 is available exclusively at Grand Seiko boutiques from June 2026, priced at €10,000. The SBGZ011 follows in July 2026, also boutique-exclusive, at €86,000. See more on the Grand Seiko website. 

2/

Certina Gives Us Three Colorful DS Action Diver 38mm Summer Editions In Grade 2 Titanium

Certina's DS concept has been around since 1959, when the brand figured out that a properly sealed crown and a few strategically placed O-rings could turn a regular watch into something hard to break. The DS Action Diver carries that idea further than almost anything else in the Swatch Group portfolio, and last year Certina beefed up the 38mm version with full DS Concept Extreme Shock Resistance — the reinforced crystal, the anti-deformation plate between dial and movement, the ring-shaped movement retainer. Now, we’re getting three new summer editions wearing all of that hardware in grade 2 titanium cases with some very loud lume colors.

The case is 38mm wide and 13.2mm thick, built from grade 2 titanium with a ceramic insert in the unidirectional bezel. The crystal is domed, scratch-resistant sapphire, reinforced and slightly convex to distribute shock. Water resistance is 300 meters, ISO 6425 certified, with a screwed-down crown protected by guards and a sealed caseback.

Three colorways are available: an electric blue ceramic bezel over a matching blue dial with orange Super-LumiNova on the indices and hands; a dark grey bezel and dial accented in turquoise; and a black bezel and dial with pink lume. Love the color combinations.

Inside is the Powermatic 80, Swatch Group's workhorse calibre with a Nivachron balance spring for antimagnetic resistance and an 80-hour power reserve. All three come on brushed titanium bracelets with a quick-release system, a deployant clasp with dual pushers, and a diver's extension.

The Certina DS Action Diver 38mm Summer Edition is available now, priced at CHF 925. See more on the Certina website.

3/

M.A.D.Editions Takes The M.A.D.2 On The Road With The New Live Edition

The M.A.D.2 has had quite a year already. It won the Petite Aiguille at last November's GPHG and the collection has now grown to five colorways since designer Eric Giroud introduced the pebble-cased DJ turntable watch in 2025. The newest one, the M.A.D.2 LIVE, launched this past Thursday at Windup Watch Fair in San Francisco, and getting one requires more than just a credit card. Just like you would expect from the very cool offshoot from MB&F.

The stainless steel 316L case is unchanged from the rest of the M.A.D.2 family: 42mm wide, 12.3mm thick, with dual sapphire crystals front and back, both treated with anti-reflective coating. It's a smooth, rounded shape that sits closer to a river stone than a traditional watch case. Water resistance is 30 meters, which is fine for what this is.

The LIVE edition gets a silver dial plate with electric blue hour and minute discs, and the same blue carries over to the winding rotor, visible from both sides. That rotor still mimics a DJ platter, complete with a stroboscopic ring inspired by the legendary Technics SL-1200 MK2 turntable. The raised subdials represent the turntable's mixing console. 

Inside is the La Joux-Perret calibre G101, a self-winding movement beating at 4Hz with 64 hours of power reserve. The bi-directional jumping hour module is developed by MB&F, giving you hours that snap on the hour rather than tracking continuously. The strap is white rubber, and the engraved deployant clasp is stamped with the city code of whatever stop you're buying it at — 13 cities across the full tour, which gives each piece a slightly different identity.

Oh, yeah, that’s the catch with the M.A.D.2 LIVE. You will only be able to buy one on a 13-city tour, live. The price is set at CHF 2,900, without tax, and the first place you could have gotten one is in San Francisco. The next announced locations are Beverly Hills (May 6), Bordeaux (May 29–30), London (June 13), and several Asian and European stops through the fall, culminating in Geneva in November. See more on the M.A.D.Editions website. 

4/

Naoya Hida Debuts Its First Chronograph; A New 31mm Calatrava-Scaled Model; And Five More New Designs

Naoya Hida has been building one of the most formidable catalogs in independent watchmaking since the brand launched in 2018, and every year the collection grows by exactly as much as the small team can produce. As we covered here when they introduced the Type 6A Perpetual Calendar last year, the brand works in very limited runs, very small cases, and finishes that hit above almost any price point you can name. For 2026, the headliner is something Hida has wanted to make since the beginning: a chronograph.

The NH TYPE7A is 36mm wide and 11.7mm thick, made in 904L steel with a concave polished bezel and engine-turned motifs on the pushers, a clear nod to the Patek reference 1463 Tasti Tondi. The dial is German silver with laser-engraved tracks and numerals, the latter hand-engraved Breguet-style figures filled with cashew-based synthetic Japanese lacquer. Time hands are solid yellow gold; the chronograph hands are heat-blued steel. Under the closed caseback sit restored and serviced vintage Valjoux 236 movements that Hida acquired in bulk years ago, apparently waiting for exactly this moment. It wears on a Granite calf strap by Jean Rousseau. Ten pieces will be made between 2026 and 2027. The NH TYPE7A is priced at JPY 5,300,000 / $38,300.

The other entirely new model is the NH TYPE8A, a 31mm watch inspired by the original Calatrava 96 and Breguet 3210 — which means Hida is explicitly going to the source material, not the modern interpretations of it. At 8.9mm thick with a screwed caseback, it's an extreme proposition in 2026. The dial is engraved German silver with Breguet numerals, small seconds at six, and blued steel hands. Through the sapphire caseback sits the new calibre 2326SS, a 23.5mm hand-wound movement beating at 3Hz with 38 hours of power reserve. Hida doesn't name the base ébauche but it sure does look like the Peseux 7001. Twenty pieces in 2026-27 will be made. The NH TYPE8A is priced at JPY 3,200,000 / $23,100.

The rest of the new 2026 references are evolutions of things we’ve seen before. The NH TYPE1E is the fifth iteration of the brand's original model, now in a 36mm case with a more pronounced domed sapphire crystal that takes the thickness from 9.8mm to 10.9mm — still powered by the hand-wound calibre 3019SS, which uses a heavily modified Valjoux 7750 base. 25 pieces, priced at JPY 2,700,000 / $19,500. 

The NH TYPE2C-2 introduces Naoya Hida's first porcelain dial in the 37mm center-seconds TYPE2 line: glossy milky white with hand-painted indexes, 10 pieces, JPY 2,850,000 / $20,600. The rectangular TYPE5B and TYPE5B-1 are refined versions of the 2024 TYPE5A, with shorter lugs by 1mm per side, a wider stepped case flank, more angular dial numerals, and larger hands — the TYPE5B-1 adding an acrylic crystal in place of sapphire and Breguet numerals on the dial. Both are 10 pieces each, both priced at JPY 3,700,000 / $26,700. 

Finally, the NH TYPE3B-4 takes the moonphase TYPE3 into 18k yellow gold with hand-engraved Art Nouveau decoration across the entire case surface (bezel and caseback excluded) and gold leaf applied to the relief-sculpted Arabic numerals. Two pieces will be made. JPY 15,000,000 / $108,300.

The entire 2026 collection goes on sale between May 18 (10 AM Japan time) and May 21, 2026. If you want the chronograph specifically — and you should want the chronograph — clear your calendar for May 18. See more on the Naoya Hida Website. 

5/

Christiaan Van Der Klaauw Brings Venus Into Its Own With Two New Astronomical Watches

Christiaan van der Klaauw is a name we've mentioned here before, mostly because I deeply fell in love with their watches. CVDK's specialty, in case you need the context, is astronomical complications: they have been making them from Schoonhoven, Netherlands, since 1974, and the two Venus models just released at Watches & Wonders continue that very specific obsession.

Both watches share the CKM-01 automatic movement, introduced in 2024, now fitted with a newly developed Venus module. That name gives away a bit of what’s happening on the dial of both of the watches: four separate discs, three of which rotate, carrying the real-time positions of Venus, Earth, and the Moon as they orbit the Sun. This is a functioning mini-planetarium on your wrist. Venus completes its 224.7-day solar orbit on the watch exactly as it does in the sky. 

The Venus Zodiac takes the more expressive route. Its aventurine dial — deep blue, flecked with light — represents the night sky, and it incorporates a zodiac function showing which sign the Sun currently occupies, with the boundary between signs falling around the 21st of each month. The moonphase display here is handled in an unusual, but very expected, way: new moon is when the Moon sits precisely between Sun and Earth, full moon when Earth is between the two. It's a geometric description of what you're already seeing, made visible. The case is 38mm in rose gold, crystal is a domed sapphire, caseback too. Worn on a blue sailcloth strap with a single-fold clasp bearing the CVDK rose gold logo.

The Venus Annual Calendar goes the technical direction. The dial is sunray-finished silver rather than aventurine, and it adds a practical layer: an annual calendar with the months displayed on an outer rail-track ring, each section scaled to reflect the actual length of that month. You correct it once every four years for the leap year. The same planetary and lunar information is present — orbit times, orbital speeds, moon phases — with the same domed sapphire crystal and see-through caseback over the star-shaped bridges and skeletonized rotor. This one comes in stainless steel on a cognac ostrich foot leather strap.

Both run the CKM-01 at 21,600 vph with a 60-hour power reserve, with a free-sprung hairspring, variable-inertia balance wheel, Swiss lever escapement with jeweled bearings, and hand-finished, beveled, rhodium-plated bridges. The Venus Zodiac in rose gold is €58,500 excluding taxes; the Venus Annual Calendar in steel is €38,200 excluding taxes. See more on the Christiaan van der Klaauw website.

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Watch Worthy - A selection of reviews and first looks from around the web

• A review of the Seiko Speedtimer SSC961
• Hands on with the Rolex Oyster Perpetual 36 with Multicoloured Jubilee Dial

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If you would like to receive some additional watch-adjacent content, as well as this news overview, every morning Monday-Friday in the form of a newsletter feel free to subscribe. However, there is absolutely no need for you to subscribe, as all the news from the newsletter is posted here. It is only if you want to receive a couple of daily links that are not strictly watch-related an occasional long form article and possible giveaways.

It's Friday and it’s May 1st today and I hope you’re reading this from a country that gives you a day off. I know I’m taking today off, manning the grill today and tomorrow! 

If you like these updates, and would maybe like to subscribe to the newsletter so you get them in your inbox every day, you can do so by clicking here.

1/

Tudor Updates The Black Bay Chrono Carbon For A New Formula 1 Season

Last year, Tudor released the Black Bay Chrono Carbon 25 in partnership with the Visa Cash App Racing Bulls Formula One Team, a 42mm chronograph in a carbon and titanium case that leaned hard into the team's livery. It sold out fast. With a new F1 season underway, Tudor is doing exactly what you'd expect: same watch, new colors, matching the new livery. The Black Bay Chrono Carbon 26 swaps last year's blue accents for yellow, updates the edition number to 2,026 pieces, and otherwise changes almost nothing.

The case is 42mm wide and made from the same combination of carbon fibre and titanium as before. Carbon handles the middle case, fixed bezel, and end-links; titanium, PVD-coated in black, takes care of the crown, pushers, and caseback. The tachymeter bezel markings are integrated into the carbon one-piece bezel. Screw-down pushers add a bit of inconvenience for anyone actually trying to time laps, but they do get you to 200 meters of water resistance. 

The dial is what’s new. The racing white base returns, as do the carbon fibre sub-dials and the carbon-framed date window at 6. The layered construction, alternating brass discs and carbon fibre sheets, is also unchanged. What's new is the color: bright yellow now runs across the minute track, sub-dials, and date disc, replacing the blue of the Carbon 25. The yellow comes from the VCARB 03, the Visa Cash App Racing Bulls team car for 2026. Applied markers and the handset are outlined in black.

Inside is calibre MT5813, Tudor's Breitling B01-derived automatic chronograph. It runs at 4Hz, stores about 70 hours of power reserve, is COSC-certified to -2/+4 seconds per day, and comes with a silicon balance spring and variable inertia balance. The watch ships on a hybrid leather-rubber strap with PVD-coated pin buckle.

The Tudor Black Bay Chrono Carbon 26 is a limited edition of 2,026 pieces, priced at €7,980. See more on the Tudor website.

2/

Rado Adds Blue To The Captain Cook High-Tech Ceramic Chronograph

Earlier this year, Rado released the Captain Cook High-Tech Ceramic Chronograph in two colorways: a black ceramic case with rose gold detailing, and a plasma ceramic case with a dark green bezel insert. This blue version is the third in that lineup. 

The case is 43mm wide, 16.2mm thick, and has a lug-to-lug of 49.8mm — it's a big watch, no getting around it. The monobloc construction is matt plasma high-tech ceramic throughout, with a titanium caseback featuring a sapphire display. The bezel has a polished blue high-tech ceramic insert, with engraved numbers and markers filled with white Super-LumiNova. Chronograph pushers and the screw-down crown are rose gold-coloured PVD stainless steel. Box-shaped sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating on both sides, and water resistance is 300 meters.

The dial is blue, with polished rose gold-coloured applied hour markers filled with white Super-LumiNova. Hour and minute hands are the same finish. The three chronograph subdials — minute counter, hour counter, and running seconds — each have a polished rose gold chronograph hand with a red tip, a retro detail. Date sits at 6 o'clock. 

Inside is the Rado calibre R801, the same automatic chronograph movement found in the other two versions. It uses a Nivachron antimagnetic hairspring, beats at 4Hz, and has a 59-hour power reserve. The bracelet is matt plasma high-tech ceramic with polished plasma middle links, closing with a titanium triple-fold clasp. Rado's high-tech ceramic bracelets wear exceptionally well — lightweight, body-temperature adapting, and very comfortable.

The Rado Captain Cook High-Tech Ceramic Chronograph in blue, reference R32195202, is available now. Price is €5,935, the same as the original models. See more on the Rado website. 

3/

Echo/neutra Teams Up With seconde/seconde To Get Rid Of The Echo

If you don’t know who seconde/seconde/ is, his name is Romaric André and he is a banker-turned-watch-customizer. There was a period of a couple of months about a year or year and half ago when seconde/seconde/ watches were coming out almost weekly. He almost overdid it with the collaborations and we got a bit desensitized by them. A couple of them were a bit shark-jumpy, which he obviously knew himself because he worked on a collab that actually did jump the shark. Since then, he took it a bit of a break, which makes his new collaborations that much sharper. And I’m glad he did, because his new work with the Italian brand echo/neutra is sensational. The two took echo/neutra’s already cool Rivanera square watch and give it an obvious, but fun, pun. 

The outside of the watch remains unchanged, and they still reflect a vintage piece — 27mm wide, with a 40mm lug-to-lug, and an incredible 5.5mm thin. 5.9 mm with the crystal. But this is no vintage watch. It is deeply modern. Not only is the watch made out of Grade 5 titanium, it gets a very rough sandblasted finish. All of this gives the case a very sporty anthracite look. On top of that, the case has dramatic and polished beveled edges. Water resistance is not spectacular at 30 meters, but who cares.

The collaboration comes on the dial. First, the dial gets a blue base with a pyramid-texture. Cool, in itself, but even cooler when you consider what they are mimicking: an anechoic chamber. Even if the name doesn’t sound familiar, I guarantee you’ve seen one before. An anechoic chamber is a specialized room designed to completely absorb reflections of sound, otherwise known as echo. They usually do it by lining the walls with foam pyramids. The pun makes itself, but they double down by striking through the “echo” part of the brand name. The 6 o’clock small seconds display has the same pattern at the center, with just a polished metal track for the numerals. The hands are also polished metal, and the minute hand is a simple pencil shape, while the hour has a little flair with its Breguet shape.

To keep things super thin, Echo/Neutra put the hand-wound ETA 7001 caliber inside, which beats at 21,600 vph and has a decent power reserve of 42 hours. There’s a very nice circular cutout on the back that shows off the movement, and the caseback is individually numbered for the 50 pieces that will be made. This Rivanera comes on a textured blue leather strap that matches the dial, with an additional grey suede strap delivered with it.

The new echo/neutra Rivanera + seconde/seconde/ goes on sale at 6PM CEST today, priced at exactly the same as the rest of the collection at €1,490. I’m guessing this will go fast. See more on the echo/neutra website. 

4/

Zeitwinkel Scales Down Its Signature Large-Date Watch With the 173°

Zeitwinkel has been on my radar since 2023, when the MAKS series landed and made clear that a small Swiss independent could produce genuinely impressive in-house work at a competitive price. Since then, the brand updated its central-seconds 082° and hours-minutes-only 312° models with new dials and case sizes. The consistent thread has been those German silver movements, hand-finished and produced entirely in-house. The 273° Saphir Fumé, however, has remained the brand's most distinctive proposition: a smoked sapphire dial with the movement architecture and large date visible from the front. It's been available only at 42.5mm, which has always been the one thing keeping it from a wider audience. The new 173° fixes that.

The case is stainless steel with polished and textured surfaces, a recessed midsection and softer lines than the angular 273°. It measures 39.7mm wide and 12.9mm thick — that thickness includes the domed sapphire crystal — with a lug-to-lug of 48mm. The 6.7mm fluted crown sits at 3 o'clock and uses a double O-ring seal. A sapphire caseback is fitted. Water resistance is 50 meters, same as before. I tried one on in Geneva and it wears beautifully, despite the apparent thickness on paper.

Two dial versions are offered: Saphir Fumé, which carries the smoked aesthetic of the original 273°, and Saphir Bleu, a light-reactive alternative with a more contemporary feel. In both cases, the dial elements are metallised and deposited directly onto the sapphire surface using LIGA lithographic techniques. The large date sits at 11 o'clock, a signature position carried over from the 273°, and there's a power reserve indicator on the right side of the dial. 

The calibre is the same ZW0103 that powered the 273°, so nothing changes on the movement front, which is not a complaint. The automatic runs at 28,800vph with a 72-hour power reserve and is built on untreated German silver plates and bridges with a frosted finish available on request. And trust me, you want the frosted finish. Those warm, champagne-toned plates remain the visual heart of this watch. Straps are calf leather or rubber, 20mm tapering to 18mm, with a deployant clasp as standard and a pin buckle available on request for leather.

The Zeitwinkel 173° is available now, priced at CHF 21,500 excluding VAT, made to order. See more on the Zeitwinkel website. 

5/

H. Moser & Cie. Releases A Miami Vice Fever Dream Of A Pioneer Tourbillon For Bucherer

The Pioneer is H. Moser & Cie.'s sportiest model, which makes it the natural home for anything F1-adjacent. While we’ve previously seen Moser watches made with the Alpine F1 team, this one is a bit different. This is the Bucherer Exclusive Pioneer Tourbillon Miami, a 28-piece limited edition sold strictly through Bucherer's 1888 retailer, made ahead of the Miami Grand Prix, draped in turquoise and pink the way only South Florida can make you believe is actually tasteful.

The steel case measures 40mm wide and 12mm thick, including the domed sapphire crystal. A screw-down crown and 120 meters of water resistance keep it appropriately credentialed as the Pioneer's sportier charter, even if the watch's real spiritual home is poolside rather than pitside. 

The drama is very much on the dial. A turquoise sunray-brushed base takes the full Florida treatment with a pink flange ring around the perimeter, and then the hands come in with vibrant green lume — three colors on a single dial, all of them screaming. It looks like a heat-and-humidity fever dream, which is exactly the point. There's no date to interrupt things, just hours, minutes, and the tourbillon aperture sitting at 6 o'clock.

Inside is the HMC 805 automatic tourbillon, the same calibre found in the Streamliner Tourbillon Concept Ceramic I wrote about just two months ago. It beats at 21,600vph with a 72-hour power reserve wound via a skeletonised rose gold rotor. The watch comes on a pink rubber strap with an additional white rubber strap included.

The Pioneer Tourbillon Miami is limited to 28 pieces and priced at CHF 59,300, available exclusively through Bucherer 1888. This watch is a lot. It is knowingly, deliberately, and successfully a lot — which is exactly what Miami is about. See more on the Bucherer website.

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Watch Worthy - A selection of reviews and first looks from around the web

• A review of the Tissot PRX Powermatic 80
• Hands on with the Patek Philippe Cubitus Perpetual Calendar Skeleton 5840P

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If you would like to receive some additional watch-adjacent content, as well as this news overview, every morning Monday-Friday in the form of a newsletter feel free to subscribe. However, there is absolutely no need for you to subscribe, as all the news from the newsletter is posted here. It is only if you want to receive a couple of daily links that are not strictly watch-related an occasional long form article and possible giveaways.

It's Thursday and I think that Stowa field watch might be the best thing we see all week. Other than that, what are your thoughts on fauxtina? 

If you like these updates, and would maybe like to subscribe to the newsletter so you get them in your inbox every day, you can do so by clicking here.

1/

Zenith Chronomaster Revival A384 'Chocolate Panda' Adds A Tropical Dial To The Retro Collection

Tropical dials are one of those collector obsessions that makes no rational sense until you see one in person. A manufacturing defect — UV exposure reacting with the lacquer chemistry — gradually turns a black dial brown over decades, and somehow that slow fade became more desirable than the original. Zenith's "chocolate panda" A384 Revival skips the fifty-year wait and delivers the look from new: warm brown sub-dials and tachymeter ring against an off-white background, with "old radium" lume on the hands and markers. Some love the fauxtina look. Others believe it’s cheating.

The case is 37mm wide and 12.6mm thick, steel throughout, built from the original 1969 blueprints with the same radial-brushed bezel, polished bevels, and pump-style pushers. A domed sapphire crystal sits on top, the one concession to modernity, along with the exhibition caseback. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The dial is the main attraction. The "chocolate panda" configuration takes the classic white-background, black-counter layout and warms the whole thing up: the three sub-dials and the peripheral tachymeter ring go brown, mimicking the look of a vintage dial that's been quietly changing color for decades in someone's drawer. The off-white lacquered background works well against those warm tones, and the faceted hour markers and hands carry "old radium" Super-LumiNova to complete the aged effect. The red chronograph seconds hand with its rectangular lumed lozenge, the slightly overflowing numerals on the 12-hour sub-dial, the period-correct font, all of it screams vintage. The date aperture at 4:30 is still an eyesore, but it was an eyesore in 1969 too.

Inside is the El Primero calibre 400 — the direct descendant of the original 3019 PHC, running at 5Hz with a 50-hour power reserve. The architecture is unchanged from 1969; the improvements are in tolerances, not topology. On the wrist it comes on the ladder bracelet, with those open central links that look like the rungs their name implies. Gay Frères made the original; Zenith has recreated it here for the Revival, and it's the detail that makes this release more than another colorway.

The Chronomaster Revival A384 Tropical is a permanent collection piece, priced at €9,600. See more on the Zenith website.

2/

STOWA Fieldwatch Terra Brings the Brand's Minimalist Principles to Land

STOWA built its reputation on the Flieger, a watch that came out of the same 1940s German Luftwaffe program that produced most of the pilot watch designs still being referenced today. The brand has leaned into that heritage with dive watches and aviation pieces for decades. The Fieldwatch Terra is a departure — not a military field watch in the vintage sense, but a modern outdoor tool watch aimed squarely at hikers and trail runners, in three earthy colorways and with a clean, functional brief.

The case is 38mm wide and 11.5mm thick, in stainless steel with a matte bead-blasted finish and gray PVD coating. I don’t mind the PVD, but this looks prime for a cerakote coating that matches or contrasts the dial. Lug-to-lug measures 46.9mm and lug width is 18mm. On top is a sapphire crystal. There's a screw-down crown with an integrated crown guard and 200 meters of water resistance, which is meaningfully more than any field trip will demand.

The matte dial carries a recessed 24-hour scale for orientation, a structured minute track around the edge, and two-tone hands. The five-minute markers are printed in red, which glow orange at night via Superluminova C1. There’s no date window, which I’m a fan of. There are three dial options available: Desert, Forest, and Soil, which translate to sand, green and brown colors.

Inside is the Sellita SW200, a reliable Swiss automatic with a stop-second function and magnetic field protection rated to 80,000 A/m, which matters if you're around equipment with electronic interference. It beats at 4Hz and has a 40 hour power reserve. The watch ships on a braided elastic fabric strap, which looks incredibly cool and is likely very comfortable.

The Fieldwatch Terra is available now, priced at €1.039, with my 25% VAT included. That’s a pretty good deal these days. See more on the STOWA website. 

3/

Louis Erard Brings Back The Blue Flinqué, And Adds A Grey Variant

Louis Erard has made the Regulator its creative playground for years now, and it’s been paying off. Earlier in 2025, the brand teamed up with Worn & Wound on a blue flinqué-inspired Regulator. That watch is back — and it's brought a grey companion. The new Esprit Flinqué comes in two versions, both limited to 99 pieces.

The case is the same one that's been showing up on every Louis Erard Regulator collaboration, and that's fine. Stainless steel, fully polished, 39mm wide and 12.82mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 45.9mm. A domed sapphire crystal sits on top, with anti-reflective coating on both sides, and the caseback is transparent. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The dial is the whole point. Louis Erard isn't working with actual flinqué enamel here — that would push the price up considerably — but the construction captures the spirit of the technique. A fluted base layer radiates outward like sun rays from the center, in either light blue or light grey. Above it sits a lacquered minutes counter in deep cobalt blue or dark grey, with the same fluted geometry. Two skeletonised sub-dials, hours at noon, seconds at six, sit on the base layer and revolve beneath the minutes counter. The only text on the dial is "Swiss Made" at 30 minutes. Louis Erard's fir-tree hand handles the minutes. 

Inside is the Sellita SW266-1 in élaboré grade, manually wound, running at 28,800vph with a 38-hour power reserve. The blue version ships on a grained beige calfskin strap; the grey on a matching grey one. Both have polished steel pin buckles and quick-release spring bars.

The Louis Erard Esprit Flinqué Le Régulateur is CHF 3,990, without taxes in either colour, 99 pieces each. See more on the Louis Erard website.

4/

Anoma Turns Its Best-Selling A1 Into A Permanent Fixture With Two New Dials

Anoma launched with a single watch and a single question: what happens when a retailer with genuinely good taste decides to make something himself? Matteo Violet Vianello, of A Collected Man, drew his debut A1 from a 1950s Charlotte Perriand table — all flowing curves, no straight lines, no obvious precedent in the watch world. The limited pre-order sold, people liked it, and now Anoma is doing what any sensible young brand does with a hit: they're keeping it. The A1 Core Collection makes two versions of the watch permanently available.

The case is the same one that made the A1 interesting in the first place — a rounded triangular 316L stainless steel form measuring 39mm by 38mm and just 9.45mm thick, with all edges polished to that particular mirror lustre you only get from the higher-grade alloy. No lugs to speak of; the leather strap tucks under the case edges. The triangular sapphire crystal sits flush in the upper bezel portion. Water resistance is 50 meters, and the whole thing is said to wear closer to a 36mm or 37mm round case on the wrist.

Two dials are available. The A1 Abyss builds a teal-green from three layers of lacquer, one greenish-blue base, two deep midnight blue over it, and divides the surface between a sunburst outer section and a mirror-polished center, so the same watch reads differently depending on the angle. The A1 Stone goes grey, with a grain-textured center meant to evoke river-bed stones, again framed by a sunburst outer ring. Both are sector dials, laid out triangularly and offset from center. Silver printed hands, no seconds hand.

Inside is the Sellita SW100 automatic, beating at 28,800vph with a 38-hour power reserve. The watch comes on grained Italian leather.

The A1 Core Collection is available now from Anoma's online boutique. The first production of 300 pieces will be delivered by June. Price is £2,200. See more on the Anoma website.

5/

Hublot Refreshes The Chronograph That Put Them On The Map With The Big Bang Unico Reloaded

Hublot launched the Big Bang in 2005, and it was the start of a line that brought about a lot of controversy to an already controversial brand. The Unico followed in 2010, bringing a fully in-house flyback chronograph to the collection and giving the Big Bang something it hadn't exactly had before: watchmaking credentials. Now, 16 years on from that launch, Hublot is marking the anniversary with the Unico Reloaded, a five-piece sub-collection built around a revised dial and a two-part bezel. But they also showed off a couple of other things at Watches and Wonders as well.

For the Unico Reloaded, the case stays at 44mm wide and 14.5mm thick, water-resistant to 100 meters. The major change is in the bezel, which is now split into two parts, letting Hublot mix contrasting materials and finishes across the five references. Magic Gold gets the brand's scratch-resistant 18k gold alloy. Three references use coloured ceramic — All Black, blue, and dark green. The fifth pairs titanium with black ceramic.

The dial revision is the real substance of the update. A central plate now covers some of the movement's inner workings, which sounds like a regression but actually results in a cleaner dial. The column wheel and oscillating pinion are still visible, now highlighted in colour and labelled with their names. The 60-minute sub-dial has been redesigned with bolder colour contrast and a peripheral track with coloured markers at ten-minute intervals. The date has moved from inside the 60-minute counter at 3 o'clock to 4:30, indicated by a coloured Super-LumiNova arrow. The small seconds at 9 o'clock is slightly less open-worked than before. On non-All Black references, two-tone colour accents run through the chronograph hand tip, the "Flyback" inscription on the peripheral track, and the lower pusher ring.

Inside is the second-generation Unico calibre, a flyback chronograph with five patents, a 72-hour power reserve, and a stated accuracy of -2/+4 seconds per day. The rotor has been updated with a cut-out H motif. Both a fabric-style rubber strap and a plain black rubber strap come included, each with Hublot's One-Click quick-change system and a folding clasp. 

Alongside the five permanent references, there are two 200-piece limited editions with ambassador input: the Kylian Mbappé edition in King Gold and microblasted white ceramic, with a gold-toned "10" at 6 o'clock; the Usain Bolt edition in black ceramic and carbon with a yellow gold bezel, a lightning bolt-shaped seconds hand, numerals reading 658, and authentic Jamaican training ground soil sandwiched in the sapphire caseback.

The Big Bang Unico Reloaded is part of the permanent collection. Pricing starts at €23,500 for the titanium-ceramic reference and €24,700 for the All Black, blue and dark green ceramic versions. Magic Gold comes in at €43,600. The Mbappé and Bolt limited editions are €29,400. See more on the Hublot website. 

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Watch Worthy - A selection of reviews and first looks from around the web

• A review of the Tudor Monarch
• Hands on with the Roger Dubuis Excalibur Biretrograde Calendar

---------------------------------------------

If you would like to receive some additional watch-adjacent content, as well as this news overview, every morning Monday-Friday in the form of a newsletter feel free to subscribe. However, there is absolutely no need for you to subscribe, as all the news from the newsletter is posted here. It is only if you want to receive a couple of daily links that are not strictly watch-related an occasional long form article and possible giveaways.

It's Monday and long time no read, sorry about that. We’re back on schedule now, with some interesting watches coming out. 

If you like these updates, and would maybe like to subscribe to the newsletter so you get them in your inbox every day, you can do so by clicking here.

1/

Farer Takes Their Pilot Series Into Titanium With The Series II Collection

Farer has covered a lot of ground since introducing their first pilot watches back in 2020. The Bradfield and Morgan were good-looking, practical, steel-cased watches with anti-magnetic Faraday cages and a clear eye on color. Now, with four new Series II Pilot watches, they've upgraded the formula: the steel is out, grade two titanium is in, and the brief has shifted noticeably toward the tool-watch end of the spectrum. 

The four models — the Curtis, Curtis Eastern Arabic, Barnwell, and Hewlett — all share a new 40mm titanium case, 10.9mm thick, with a 43mm lug-to-lug. The bead-blasted finish runs across the case, with a brushed bezel. On top is a domed sapphire crystal with multiple anti-reflective coatings, and there's an oversized conical crown designed to be worked with gloves on. Inside the case, the Faraday cage returns, shielding the movement from magnetic fields up to 500 Gauss. Water resistance is 100 meters.

Each model handles the dial differently while sticking to classic pilot layouts. The Curtis gets a segmented blue-grey guilloché-style dial with pale yellow lume. The Curtis Eastern Arabic swaps in Arabic numerals and is a limited run of 100 pieces. The Barnwell follows a Type B layout — large outer minute track, smaller inner hour scale — in bronze tones with hints of blue and orange. The Hewlett is the clean one: deep ink blue, bold markers, and what looks like strong lume contrast. 

Inside each is the Sellita SW300-1 in Elaboré grade. It beats at 28,800 vph and delivers a 56-hour power reserve. At this price, this is one of the more affordable SW300 versions I’ve seen. The watches ship on leather straps, with color choices matched to each model.

The Farer Pilot Collection Series II is priced at €1,555. See more on the Farer website. 

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Sinn Echoes A Legendary Reference With The New 544 And 544rs

Sinn's first Watches & Wonders appearance is was a fun time. The Frankfurt brand has been an enthusiast staple for decades, the kind of brand that shows up in serious collections alongside watches that cost ten times as much, and having their place in Palexpo was quite appropriate. The 544 is a completely new reference — but collectors will clock the DNA immediately. The hooded, lugless case is derived from the long-running 144 chronograph and the discontinued 244, the cushion-cased titanium model first introduced in 1994 after Sinn was acquired by IWC engineer Lothar Schmidt. The 544 is the natural heir to the 244, just in steel instead of titanium, with Arabic numerals around the chapter ring rather than lume dots.

The case is bead-blasted stainless steel, 38.5mm wide. The crown tucks away at 4:00, which keeps the profile clean and contributes to the comfortable wear those relatively short hidden lugs already promise. You don't get Sinn's Tegiment treatment or an Ar dehumidifying capsule here, but the D3 crown system is present, and water resistance is 200 meters.

The dial is matte black and sparsely decorated, with the Sinn logo at 12:00 and the date window framed at 8:00. The framing will divide people, but it's cleanly executed and preferable to trying to disguise it. What's genuinely new is the lume application: hand-applied hybrid-ceramic luminous markers with luminous pigment integrated directly into the ceramic mold, which perform impressively in practice. The 544 RS swaps the white seconds hand for red.

Inside is a Sellita SW200-2 automatic with a 60-hour power reserve, an upgrade over the SW200-1 in the 556. The hidden lugs take standard 20mm spring bars, so you're not locked into the bracelet — Sinn offers their H-link, an integrated rubber strap, and leather options, all featuring the new tool-free micro-adjust clasp. 

The 544 and 544 RS are priced at €1,390 on leather or rubber strap and €1,740 on bracelet. See more on the Sinn website. 

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Orient Star Continues It’s 75th Anniversary Celebration With Two Different Watches

Orient Star turns 75 this year, which means it's their turn after Orient's own anniversary last year. We’ve already gotten a bunch of anniversary releases from them, and now we’re getting two more — a new Contemporary Date and a M34 F8 Date with a meteorite dial. 

The Contemporary Date case is the same as before — 38.5mm wide, 12.3mm thick, stainless steel with brushed and polished surfaces, with a domed sapphire crystal, and 100 meters of water resistance. The M34 is slightly larger at 40mm wide and 12.9mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 47.3mm, and the same sapphire and water resistance specs. Both have transparent casebacks, the M34's engraved with the anniversary and a serial number. 

The Contemporary Date usually has three colors in the regular lineup (soft purple, dark beige, brown leather), but this new anniversary-specific addition gets a gradient green dial that looks almost teal-blue. The date window at three still unbalances an otherwise symmetrical dial, but you could also argue that the power reserve at 12 and text at 6 already make things a bit wonky. The M34 meteorite dial is all monochrome: silver Widmanstätten pattern over iron meteorite brightened with silver PVD, matched to the steel case, applied indices, and hands. The power reserve arc at 12 interrupts the meteorite texture in a way I find hard to justify.

The Contemporary Date runs the F6N43, Orient Star's in-house automatic at 21,600 vph, 50 hours of power reserve, +25/-15 seconds per day. The M34 gets the considerably better F8N64: 60 hours of power reserve, a silicon escape wheel, and +15/-5 seconds per day accuracy — a properly accomplished movement for the price. Both watches ship on stainless steel bracelets.

The Orient Star Contemporary Date 75th Anniversary is limited to 1,200 pieces, priced at about €800. The M34 F8 Date Meteorite 75th Anniversary is limited to 255 pieces, priced at €3,249.99. See more on the Orient Star website. 

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Gerald Charles Adds A Perpetual Calendar To Their Integrated Bracelet Masterlink Collection

The Masterlink arrived in 2024 as Gerald Charles's bid for the integrated bracelet sports watch market, and it came in the form of a 38mm square case with that distinctive Genta-designed chin at six o'clock, a wafer-thin micro-rotor movement made by Vaucher, and none of the octagonal-bezel clichés you'd expect from a brand tracing its lineage to Genta. For Watches and Wonders 2026, Gerald Charles is pushed the Masterlink into considerably more demanding territory with a perpetual calendar, which the brand is calling its most complex watch to date.

The case remains in Grade 5 titanium at 40mm wide, carrying over the Masterlink's architectural lines and that signature chin. At 10mm thick for a perpetual calendar, it really is ultra-thin designation. Total weight on the integrated titanium bracelet comes to 95 grams, which makes the watch feel almost uncomfortably light in hand. Surfaces combine polished and matte areas with what Gerald Charles calls Darkblast — a sandblasted treatment the brand describes as giving the case a soft, almost rubber-like touch. Water resistance is 100 meters.

There are two available dials, with two completely different looks. The smoked version has a two-layer construction with vertical grille cutouts finished in ruthenium. The open-worked version replaces that with a thin sapphire layer that suspends the hour markers above the movement, leaving the calendar mechanism fully visible beneath. Both use an asymmetrical layout that puts the date in an oversized display, with the month and leap year indicators scaled down. The case's smile at six o'clock anchors the composition and keeps the asymmetry from feeling chaotic.

Inside is the automatic calibre GCA11000, built on a Vaucher micro-rotor base with a proprietary perpetual calendar module. It beats at 3Hz and has 50 hours of power reserve. The bridges are finished in two stripe patterns, straight Geneva stripes representing the city's roads and curved stripes for Lake Léman, with a black ruby marking the location of the Gerald Charles atelier on Rue du Mont-Blanc. The gold-plated micro-rotor carries a hexagonal honeycomb motif. The watch comes on a two-finish titanium bracelet.

The Masterlink Perpetual Calendar is priced at CHF 63,000 for the ruthenium-finished smoked dial and CHF 70,000 for the sapphire dial version. See more on the Gerald Charles website. 

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The De Bethune DB25Vxs Silver Moon Is A Smaller, Reconfigured Take On Their Classic Moonphase

De Bethune has been making the spherical moon phase since 2004, and they have never tired of finding new ways to build a watch around it. The DB25Vxs Silver Moon is a smaller, reconfigured take on the DB25L — itself the watch that launched the brand's classic collection, and one that used the moon phase as its centerpiece from the start. The new version brings the case down from 44mm to a more considered 40.6mm while keeping everything that made the original worth caring about.

The grade 5 titanium case measures 40.6mm wide, with a familiar drum shape, thin rounded bezel, and hollowed ogival lugs that have become as recognizable as any signature De Bethune element. The entire thing is highly polished, including the lugs, and water resistance is 30 meters. 

The silvered dial carries a hand-guilloché barleycorn pattern and rose gold Breguet-style hands that are hand-curved to arc over the three-dimensional moon at 12 o'clock. That moon is fashioned from palladium and flame-blued steel, set against a reshaped blued titanium sky scattered with gold stars. It's an extraordinary piece of micro-sculpture dressed up as a dial complication, and the whole thing is better for being framed in a case that doesn't overwhelm it. But my favorite part of the dial are the undulations — look at how cool the curve of the numbers track meets the curve of the center of the dial.

Inside is the DB2105V5, a hand-wound movement running at 28,800vph with a six-day power reserve from a self-regulating twin-barrel. It incorporates De Bethune's flat terminal curve balance spring, a silicon escape wheel, and their triple pare-chute shock absorption system. The moon phase mechanism requires a single day's correction every 122 years. The watch comes on an extra-supple alligator strap with a grade 5 titanium pin buckle.

The De Bethune DB25Vxs Silver Moon is priced at CHF 82,000 excluding taxes. See more on the De Bethune website. 

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IAT COLUMN — CARRIE ON WATCHING: It Is A Promising Time For Someone Looking For Female- And Unisex-Focused Timepieces

Carrie Conta is a NY-based watch enthusiast at the start of her watch journey and she will be documenting her path of building a watch collection as a woman in her monthly column on It’s About Time. You can follow her on Instagram.

My interest in watches didn’t start with a purchase. It started with an inheritance.

A 1905 Hampden Molly Stark pocket watch, an engagement gift from my great-grandfather to my great-grandmother before he left for World War I. It’s worn now. The face is damaged. The initials etched carried a promise, a promise he kept when they married upon his return in 1918. It was since affixed to her fleur-de-lis pin. I stared at it on our family shelf for as long as I can remember, since I could look up to the cabinet the pocket watch sat in between their two pictures. She was someone I connected with and that watch remained a piece I admired as it was pinned with the fleur-de-lis on my wedding bouquet and beyond.

I didn’t think of that as the beginning of anything at the time. Watches, in my life, were never a category to explore. They were gifts. Markers. Occasional accessories that appeared and accumulated without much thought. A Swatch here. A circa-1990 women’s Rolex there. Pieces that felt significant, but not yet a clear decision I had made for myself.

That only shifted when I chose one as a gift for an anniversary present: a Montblanc 1858, limited edition, inspired by the same era as that original pocket watch. It was the first time a watch felt less like something passed down and more like something I had a clear vision for myself.

What had always been passive became deliberate. Not just what to wear, but what it means to wear it. And realizing, somewhat unexpectedly, that I want to be a participant in that decision, not just a recipient of an older piece or gifting for someone else. It was something that I could actively cultivate, like a curator for a gallery of myself.

A snag I have noticed has been the tilted scales where the industry leans so strongly masculine. The initial hurdles of finding a space for me to even start were daunting. However, I have been fortunate enough to have those in my life to support this rising interest, and others outside of my own bubble are taking notice of this rising community.

It is a promising time for someone looking for female- and unisex-focused timepieces. Since 2024, statistics have shown Millennial and Gen-Z women to be geared more toward watches that make a statement for themselves and are now increasingly wishing to make statements through quality and, most importantly, choice. The industry is listening, and I am happy to hear and spread the word.

A gateway for that exploration has been through other connections or interests and how they align with the watches I have explored for myself or others. The connection of time period for the Molly Stark and 1858 began this journey, and what has followed has been a dive into astronomy, retro-futurism, skeleton watches and more.

Of course the stars would appeal to me. I have been staring at them for years, specifically searching for places to witness them: national parks, open waters, or the clear skies of a transatlantic red-eye flight. A love of constellations and the cosmos in general was a connection point for my husband and I, and of course the conversation over them would continue during that same anniversary trip where our collective watch adventures began, his a fast leap and mine now dive.

I have looked further at men's watches with these themes in mind, searching for compatible women’s counterparts. The Christopher Ward C63 Celest I continue to eye and the Venezianico Redentore Bellanotte that bring us back to a starry night in Venice where nothing felt real but everything felt beautiful.

A moment and passion continued to be a thread woven through this budding interest. Over the last few years, as I pondered further gift ideas, I have since been enamored with the idea of a “starry night” type watch for myself. The newly released Rado Centrix Moonphase Limited Edition struck me as a perfect women’s option that appeals to everything that has me feeling sentimental on so many levels while also highlighting its durability—a key thought for any watch purchaser including those of us still acclimating to the scene. I stare at it and hope to continue to meld my interests of stars, oceans, history, and art together into something that speaks to me.

After all, watches are so much more than just time pieces; they help us express who we are and how we hope to be seen. They speak to the part of you that was looking at a vintage watch before you truly grasped what you were looking at but just knew it meant something deeply. They’re the gifts you received and milestones you met. They are gifts you give to people and to yourself that say you care about them in this moment and the next.

This is a path I will continue down and hope to bring you with me through each month.

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Watch Worthy - A selection of reviews and first looks from around the web

• A review of the Otsuka Lotec No.8
• Hands on with the Girard-Perregaux Neo Constant Escapement Pink Gold

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