AP Releases Blue Ceramic RO Trilogy; Norqain Shrinks Wild One Skeleton; A Smaller FC QC Is A Grail Killer; Laurent Ferrier's Sky Blue Dial; Piaget's White Gold Polo 79 And New Warhol Watches

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. This issue was largely written on the Autobahn from Munich to home. So, sorry it’s a bit late. I’m finally seeing a doctor tomorrow for the pinched nerve that’s made my arm useless, so these sends will get much more punctual.

In this issue:

• Audemars Piguet Releases “Bleu Nuit, Nuage 50” Ceramic Royal Oak Trilogy

• Norqain Shrinks Down Their Wild One Skeleton And Gives It Four Funky Colors

• The New, Smaller, Frederique Constant Perpetual Calendar Manufacture Is A Grail Killer

• Laurent Ferrier Adds A Sky Blue Dial To The Classic Auto Horizon

• Piaget Releases White Gold Polo 79 And A Whole Bunch Of New Andy Warhol Watches

👂What’s new

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Audemars Piguet Releases “Bleu Nuit, Nuage 50” Ceramic Royal Oak Trilogy

Despite not being a part of Watches and Wonders, Audemars Piguet squeezed in quite a significant release just as the biggest watch show on earth was starting. Perhaps trying to steal a bit of thunder. However, I only now got to writing about it. Based on the Royal Oak, of course, AP just released a trio of ceramic models — two Royal Oak Offshore Chronographs and a Royal Oak Openworked Double Balance — in a color they are calling “Bleu Nuit, Nuage 50”, something we’ve seen on the first Royal Oak in 1972.

Starting off with the Royal Oak Double Balance Wheel Openworked, it comes in a 41mm wide and 9.7mm thick ceramic case that has the iconic dark blue hue. Like most ceramic cases that aren’t the usual black or white, getting the right shade of blue took years of development. There’s no dial, only a blue flange that holds the hour markers. That’s because all eyes are on the rhodium-toned calibre 3132 and its two balance wheels, each with its own hairspring, connected by a single balance staff. The movement beats at 3Hz, with a 45 hour power reserve. Price is set at €99,000. For some strange reason, the watch is not up on the Audemars Piguet website.

Moving on to the Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph 42mm Beast Ceramic Bleu Nuit Nuage (on the left in the picture above), it comes in an oversized 42mm wide and 15.3mm thick ceramic case with ceramic crown guards, pushers and a full ceramic bracelet. The only non-blue things are the screws on the bezel and the titanium pusher in the crown. The dial continues the blue theme with a blue mega tapisserie pattern, blue sub-dials and a blue flange, interrupted only by the white gold indices and hands and white printings. Inside is the 4404 automatic integrated flyback chronograph movement with a column wheel and vertical clutch and 70 hours of power reserve. Priced at €85,900. You can see more of it here.

And last, there’s the Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph 43mm Steel and Ceramic Bleu Nuit Nuage which drops the full ceramic case in favor of a 43mm wide and 14.4mm thick steel case with a blue ceramic bezel and blue ceramic pushers. The dial has the same blue mega tapisserie pattern, but now with lighter blue snailed sub-dials. The hands and indices are once again white gold and filled with lume. Inside is the calibre 4401, also a flyback chronograph with a column wheel and vertical clutch and 70 hours of power reserve. It comes on a “Bleu Nuit, Nuage 50” textured calfskin strap and an extra rubber strap. Price is set at €42,400. See more here.

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Norqain Shrinks Down Their Wild One Skeleton And Gives It Four Funky Colors

I’m happy to admit when I’m wrong. Well, not exactly wrong, Just changed my mind. I’ve been pretty dismissive of Norqain in the past, not understanding what their position and value proposition is, but they are growing on me. Sure, I still have my issues with some of their watches, and a bit with part of their approach, but I’m starting to dig the watches as it’s clear that the brand is starting to have way more fun. Their latest release presented at Watches & Wonders comes in the form of the skeletonized Wild One, fixing the issue of the existing model by shrinking it down to 39mm. And adding four new colors for good measure.

The new cases of the Wild One measure 39mm wide, 11.75mm thick and has a lug-to-lug of 45.75mm. But they are still made of their proprietary Norteq material, which is a carbon fibre composite of CF and 60% bio-based material. It’s also built like a rock, with a protective cage around the entire case, reinforced with a rubber shock absorber surrounding the titanium movement container. One of the cool things about these polymers is the fact that you can introduce as much color as you want. So, the new 39mm Wild One Skeleton is available in four colors — Purple Ice Blue, Hyper Pink, Sky Blue and Mint, all pretty self explanatory. Water resistance remains at 200 meters.

There’s not much to the dial, other than a flange that holds the lumed hour markers and hands, all you see the movement. And that’s the calibre N08S which is, of course, just the Sellita SW200. It beats at 4Hz, has a 41 hour power reserve and is actually COSC certified, which is pretty cool. The watches come on a black rubber strap that has a central segment color matched to the rest of the case.

The new Wild One Skeleton is available now, as part of the regular collection, with the Mint version being limited to 400 pieces. The Hyper Pink, Sky Blue and Purple Ice Blue are priced at €5,390, while the Mint is priced at €5,490. See more on the Norqain website.

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The New, Smaller, Frederique Constant Perpetual Calendar Manufacture Is A Grail Killer

There’s no denying that Frederique Constant is the king of bringing you incredibly beautiful watches at often quite unbelievable prices. The same is true for their Perpetual Calendar Manufacture, one of the most affordable perpetual calendars on the market. But as good as it looked, it was quite large at 42mm, keeping it from a lot of wrists. But then, this year at Watches and Wonders, Frederique Constant fixed that with the Perpetual Calendar Manufacture with a brand new in-house movement and 40mm diameter.

The new case manages to fit the QP complication into a stainless steel case that measures 40mm wide and 12.2mm thick, with new slender lugs and a polished finish. On the side is an onion crown and on top is a broad smooth bezel. There are sapphire crystals on top and bottom and you even get a 50 meters of water resistance, really not something you expect from a lot of perpetual calendars.

The dial comes in a beautiful sunray-brushed salmon color and keeps the same setup as previous perpetual calendar versions — you get a sub-dial at 3 for the date, month and leap year at 12 and days of the week at 9 o’clock. At 6, you’ll find a crescent-shaped opening for the moon phase indicator. You also get slimmer coloured indices, as well as silver hands all over.

Inside is the new calibre FC-776. Frederique Constant prides itself in creating their own in-house movements, and this one is no different. It’s a major upgrade to the old movement since it gets 72 instead of 38 hours of power reserve, while beating at 4Hz and decorated with perlage and Côtes de Genève, with a openworked rose golden-coloured rotor. The watch comes on a dark brown alligator strap.

The new Frederique Constant Classic Perpetual Calendar Manufacture is available now at a pretty spectacular price of CHF 9,995. See more on the Frederique Constant website.

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Laurent Ferrier Adds A Sky Blue Dial To The Classic Auto Horizon

The Laurent Ferrier Classic Auto is not a new watch for this year. It came out last year with a stunning Sandstone dial. But now we’re getting perhaps an even better version of the sport watch with a light sky blue dial. This is the new Laurent Ferrier Classic Auto Horizon.

The case remains the same as the previous version, inspired by round cases of vintage pocket watches. It’s pebble shaped, with a fantastic looking satin finish and measuring 40mm wide and 11.94mm thick. On the side is a contrasting polished ball shaped crown. Water resistance is not perfect at 30 meters, but it will suffice.

The main attraction is obviously the vertically brushed horizon blue dial. On the periphery is a brushed railway track and there’s a snailed small seconds at 6 o’clock that’s recessed a bit from the dial. The drop-shaped indices and Assegai hour and minute hands are made out of white gold. Then, there’s the very cool sloping ramp towards the date window, one of the best designs I’ve seen for a date aperture.

The watch is powered by the calibre LF270.01, a more robust version of their micro-rotor with a classic Swiss lever escapement. The platinum micro-rotor is placed between the mainplate and the rotor bridge to improve stability and winding power. You get 72 hours of power reserve and the platinum rotor is hand-engraved with a motif evoking a bird’s feathers to match the beak-shaped bridge. The watch comes on a taupe goat leather strap.

The new Laurent Ferrier Classic Auto Horizon is available now, priced at CHF 45,000, without tax. See more on the Laurent Ferrier.

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Piaget Releases White Gold Polo 79 And A Whole Bunch Of New Andy Warhol Watches

A bit over a year ago, Piaget reached back into their archives and revived the Polo 79, a solid gold recreation of an 1980s icon. People loved the size, loved the shape and the throwback of it all, but wondered if Piaget would ever make a version that is not in yellow gold and not priced at €80.000. Well, Piaget made everyones wish come true. Only, everyone was hoping for a steel Piaget Polo 79. What we got instead is a white gold version that costs even more than the yellow. Also, they unveiled a couple of new Andy Warhol watches.

While the previous Polo 79 held the essence of 1980s luxury, with its yellow gold case. The new white gold case is much more subdued. It still measures 38mm wide and 7.35mm thick. You see the instantly recognizable gadroons which span not just the dial, but also the dial and bracelet. The gardoons are polished, which contrast the brushed surface of the case. The dial is made out of white gold, with dots drilled into it to serve as a minute track. Oh, and the dauphine style hands are also made out of white gold.

Inside is Piaget's ultra-thin caliber 1200P1, an automatic micro-rotor caliber measuring 2.35mm. It beats at a 3Hz beat rate and has a 44 hour power reserve. The watch comes a beautiful tapered white gold bracelet, with adjustment screws hidden on the inside.

The new Piaget Polo 79 White Gold is part of the regular collection and is priced at €95,000. See more on the Piaget website.

Another novelty for Piaget at Watches and Wonders is a quartet of new versions of the Andy Warhol Watch with precious and semi-precious stone dials. The watch was introduced late last year, as a spiritual successor of the Piaget Black Tie, a 1970s super thin yellow gold watch that measured an unusually large 45mm wide and was made iconic on Andy Warhol’s wrist. That’s why Piaget named the new collection the Andy Warhol Watch.

The new watches all come in the same cushion shaped case that measures 45mm x 43mm in either white or rose gold, with stepped gadroons. Among the four versions, we have a white gold version with a gem-set case and an opal dial, a white gold version with a tiger’s eye stone dial, as well as two meteorite dials — a grey one in a rose gold version and a green one in a white gold case. They all have white gold dauphine style hands, while the meteorite dials get applied white gold indices.

The original was powered by the very interesting Beta 21 quartz movement, while the modern version gets Piaget’s ultra thin automatic calibre 501P1. It’s an automatic that’s just 3.63mm thick, beats at 4Hz and has a 40 hour power reserve. The watch can be had on a number of leather strap colors.

The price for the new versions of the Andy Warhol Watch is still to be determined, and Piaget still doesn’t have it on the website.

⏲️Wait a minute

A bunch of links that might or might not have something to do with watches. One thing’s for sure - they’re interesting

• Before Google, before Siri, if you had a question about something, you had to go and look up the answer—often at the library. For The Hedgehog Review, Stephen Akey recounts his time working at the Telephone Reference Division of the Brooklyn Public Library, where he and seven other colleagues took phone calls from an inquisitive public. Callers had five minutes with the librarian and were allowed a max of three questions per call.

• In April 1943, James Wakasa was shot and killed by a guard while walking near the edge of the Topaz Relocation Center, a Japanese American internment camp in Utah. After the shooting, fellow prisoners erected a monument in Wakasa’s honor, which was buried over time. Decades later, two archaeologists rediscovered the monument, but it was excavated—disrespectfully and without the involvement of Topaz descendants—by the museum tasked with preserving the site’s history.

• ​”What are the chances? That a lapsed luck philosopher meets an unluckiness magnet on Tinder and falls for her? That she falls for him?” For New York magazine, Eric Boodman explores the complex nature of luck through the life trajectories of a sociologist prone to misfortune, Holly Davis, and her husband (and luck scholar), Lee John Whittington. Is luck real? It’s a tough question, but Boodman tackles it in this intriguing piece.

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Thanks for reading,
Vuk