Breitling Has A New Navitimer Fit For America; Fortis Launches New V-40 Vagabond GMT Collection; Mido Shrinks Down The Multifort TV; MeisterSinger's Notre-Dame Tribute; HYT Teases New Collection

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. The Fortis will certainly be a controversial watch at that price point, can’t wait to see how it turns out. But what isn’t controversial is how good looking that MeisterSinger is.

Oh, and if you could do me a favor, read the short call for help right below. It would really mean a lot.

In this issue:

• Breitling Builds On Their Rising Popularity In North America With A New Blue Navitimer

• Fortis Launches Brand New V-40 Vagabond GMT Collection With Gold Details And COSC Movement

• Mido Shrinks Down Their Very Funky Multifort TV To A More Manageable 35mm And Very Cool Dials

• MeisterSinger Welcomes The Reopening Of The Notre Dame With A Special Edition Bell Hora

• HYT Teases New Sports Collection With The Skeletonized S1 Titanium “Japan Limited Edition”

Today’s reading time: 8 minutes and 15 seconds

👂What’s new

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Breitling Builds On Their Rising Popularity In North America With A New Blue Navitimer

Somewhat surprisingly, Breitling had one of the more compelling releases this year. It was the Breitling Chronomat NFL Collection, a really funky crossover of the iconic Breitling model and NFL fandom. They made 32 unique watches, all in very limited quantities, each with branding of one of the 32 NFL teams. What could have been a tacky mess ended up a really nice release, and it’s obvious that Breitling is rising in popularity in the United States. So no wonder that they are releasing a new North American exclusive release. It’s very different from the NFL Chronomat, but still very attractive. It’s the new Breitling Navitimer B01 Chronograph 46 North American Limited Edition.

Not to reach for any stereotypes here, but the watch is housed in a very North-American-sized case. It measures a hefty 46mm wide, 13.95mm thick and with a lug-to-lug of 51.88mm. Add to that the massive 24mm lug width and you have quite a watch. On top is a domed sapphire crystal, that’s surrounded by a bezel made out of solid 18k red gold. The rest of the case is made out of stainless steel. Don’t expect much of water resistance here, you get just 30 meters.

The dial gets a deep blue base with black sub-dials at 3, 6 and 9 o’clock. The 6 o’clock sub-dial has an integrated date window and there are red details all over — on the central chronograph hand, as well as part of the blue and black slide rule bezel that surrounds the blue dial. The hour and minute hands, as well as the sub-dial hands and the applied hour markers are all made out of red gold.

Inside the watch is the Caliber B01 automatic chronograph, a familiar movement equipped with a column wheel and a vertical clutch. It beats at 4Hz, has a great 70 hour power reserve and is COSC certified. The watch comes on a black alligator leather strap that tapers from 24mm to 20.

The new Breitling Navitimer B01 Chronograph 46 North American Limited Edition will be made in only 300 pieces and is available only in, you guessed it, North Armerica. Priced at $12,500. See more on the Breitling website.

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Fortis Launches Brand New V-40 Vagabond GMT Collection With Gold Details And COSC Movement

I adore brands like the indie Fortis. They’re not in your face, you won’t see them often in the wild, but what they do, they do really well. They make modern tool watches with some very unique design choices and for that, they developed a loyal audience. Just like one should run a watch brand. Now, they’re introducing a new line, one that’s less an adventure tool and more of an upscale travel tool. It’s also their most expensive watch, so it could be quite a gamble for the brand. This is the new Fortis V-40 Vagabond.

First off, great case shape. Instead of the ubiquitous round (or even square circle), Fortis goes for a very square case with slight bulges on the side to give somewhat of a cushion shape. Made out of brushed grade 5 titanium, with a super thin polished bezel, it measures 40mm wide. Sure it’s on the thick side at 13.9mm, but thanks to the shape along with the stubby and curved lugs it has a great lug-to-lug of 46.5mm. On the side is a flat and fluted large screw down crown and out back is a smoked sapphire crystal. Water resistance is 200 meters.

The dials can be had in three colors — a dark grey they call Urban Shadow, a sunbrust blue called Blue Dusk and a pretty spectacular rough textured light grey called Stormy Grey. All three have the same setup, with an overemphasised sector division. On the outer track you’ll find polished applied numerals for the odd hours and stick indices for the even hours. Those indices and the triangle at 12 are filled with Super-LumiNova X1, just like the hour and minute hands. In the centre is disc that holds the Fortis logo and the model name. Between the two discs is a 24-hour ring made out of white gold, which is quite a choice. The GMT hours are pointed to with a stubby hand topped with a red arrow. It also has a fantastic integration of a date window where the 24 hour ring has a cutout where the 12 would be and that shows the date.

Inside, a movement they call the calibre Werk 13. The movement is developed and produced by Kenissi and is a traveller style GMT. The movement beats at 4Hz and has a 70 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a titanium three-link bracelet.

The watches can be ordered now, with deliveries expected in 4-6 weeks Price is set at €6,800, with taxes included. See more on the Fortis website.

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Mido Shrinks Down Their Very Funky Multifort TV To A More Manageable 35mm And Very Cool Dials

I’m a sucker for Mido. While a large part of their lineup are decent, stylish and mostly traditional looking watches, every now and again they come out with something fantastic. Take a look at the Ocean Star GMT, a fantastic looking watch. Or the Ocean Star Decompression Worldtimer, currently one of my favorite watches on sale. Or the incredible Multifort TV Big Date S01E01 that was unfortunately a very limited edition. They really do know how to make a fun watch. And their Multifort TV is such a great platform. A platform that has one huge issue. It’s rather large. A problem they’re looking to fix with the introduction of the brand new 35mm Multifort TV collection.

Still retaining the shape of an old television (albeit, maybe a little more square), the new Multifort TV measures 35mm wide, just 9.3mm thick and with a really short lug-to-lug of 41.88 mm. The collection is launching with five references, four of which come in brushed stainless steel, with one getting a rose gold colored PVD treatement. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The five references are mostly differentiated by their dials. The two most subdued options come in grey and blue, both with horizontal brushing and gradients from color in the center to almost black on the outside, with eight dots and three trapezoid indexes, all lumed. The rose gold PVD version gets eight diamonds for hour marker dots, with a wonderfully brown dial. And finally, there are two mother of pearl dials, one light grey and one light blue, again with the diamond indexes. All five have a small date aperture at 12 o’clock.

Inside is the automatic Caliber 72. This is not a variation of their Powermatic 80, as one might expect, but rather a movement based on the ETA A31.111. It beats at 3.5 Hz and has a 72 hour power reserve. The watches come on matching stainless steel bracelets with a deployant clasp.

The new Mido Multifort TV 35 is available now and priced at CHF 1,100 for the stainless steel versions with the blue and black dial, CHF 1,160 for the two MOP-dial versions and CHF 1,300 for the rose gold PVD version. See more on the Mido website.

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MeisterSinger Welcomes The Reopening Of The Notre Dame With A Special Edition Bell Hora

I still very vividly remember the scenes of the horrific fire that decimated the Notre-Dame de Paris, one of the most beautiful Cathedrals in the world. The inferno pretty much destroyed the entire church in 2019 but in no time, it’s been restored and it’s ready to open on 8 December 2024. This is especially funny because I have never seen the Cathedral in Zagreb, where I live, without its scaffolding. Seriously, it’s been undergoing restoration since 1990. And we’re talking just an external restoration of a church that was in decent shape In 2020, they announced that they should be done soon and then Zagreb was hit with an earthquake which knocked off the two spires. We’re expecting another 40 years to reconstruct those. That’s what makes the Notre-Dame restoration even more impressive. And paying homage to the reopening of the church, the German brand MeisterSinger that specialises in one-handed watches, is releasing, in partnership with Parisian retailer Ocarat, a special edition of their chiming Bell Hora with a miniature recreation of one of its rose windows on the dial.

This is still a Bell Hora model from MeisterSinger, so it measures 42mm wide and 12.95mm thick, which is a totally acceptable size for what the watch is. It’s made out of stainless steel, with brushed and polished surfaces. On the right side is a crown, above which is a pusher that activates the chiming mechanism when depressed. Water resistance is 50 meters.

But the dial… oh the dial. First, it still uses the one hand to display the time. Here it’s done in white with circular counterweights and a red tip. That points to the sandstone colored periphery which holds the blue printed hours and minutes. But in the center, the sandstone color is reserved for the cutout disc that is cut to mimic Notre Dame’s 13th-century stained glass rose windows. Underneath is is a beautiful dark blue sunburst background. I mean, it’s a looker.

Inside is a relatively humble movement, the base Sellilta SW200 which beats at 4Hz and has a 38 hour power reserve. It’s modified to show the time with one hand and then gets an added module that’s actually a modified jumping hour module to chime every hour. The watch comes on a brown cowhide strap.

Only 70 pieces of the MeisterSinger Bell Hora Edition Notre Dame will be made, and you’ll be able to buy them directly from MeisterSinger or the Ocarat store in Paris. Price is set at €4,599. See more on the MeisterSinger website.

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HYT Teases New Sports Collection With The Skeletonized S1 Titanium “Japan Limited Edition”

When HYT burst on the scene with their very novel way of telling the time with different colored liquids traveling around a regular dial, it was shocking enough to allow them years of variations on the same theme. But they knew thew would have to make changes, and changes they made. Over the past 12 years, they have made their watches smaller, more wearable, introduced more subdued color options and started skeletonizing the dial. Soon, the brand will introduce a permanent S1 sports edition, but in the meantime we get this, the S1 Titanium “Japan Limited Edition”, a super limited monochromatic watch with an openworked dial. Cool.

While the numbers of this watch are huge, keep in mind that these have gotten increasingly more wearable. But still, it measures 45.6mm wide, a ludicrous 17.2mm thick (I actually miss-wrote this as 12.7mm three times because the real number was so unbelievable) and a completely normal lenght of 46.3mm. The titanium case has a very futuristic look, with hollowed flanks and no bezel on top. What you do get on top is a heavily domed crystal. The crown is integrated into the angular case, with crown guards and positioned at 2:30. You even get 50 meters of water resistance, which is not something you expect from a watch that looks like this.

The dial is extremely monochromatic with no color to it, not even for their signature fluidic time indicator. Instead, you get a black fluid that gets shifted around by the two bellows that you can see through the dial at 6 o’clock. They push and pull the two liquids that cannot mix, pointing at the time, and when the black fluid reaches the end of the capillary, it performs a retrograde motion and returns to its initial position to begin a new 12-hour cycle. To show the minutes, HYT uses a central black gold hand with white Super-LumiNova and a grey minutes track.

All of this is powered by the HTY 501-CM manual-winding movement. It beats at 4Hz and has a 72 hour power reserve. The watch comes with two straps, one grey nylon strap with a hook and loop closure, and the other a black rubber, both integrated into the case.

The HYT S1 Titanium “Japan Limited Edition” will be made only in eight pieces and sold only in Japan. Price, without tax, is CHF 58,000. See more on the HYT website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

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A review of the Tudor Black Bay Chrono 'Blue' Boutique Edition

2/

Hands-On with the Girard-Perregaux Laureato Chronograph Ti49

3/

A review of the Victorinox INOX Automatic 41mm in carbon

⚙️Watch Worthy

A look at an off beat, less known watch you might actually like

The M36 stands as one of the most convincing Dirty Dozen tributes yet

Presented with a minimalistic and highly legible dial with large Arabic numerals and a railroad minutes track, the design language of the Vertex M36 ticks the right boxes in line with the WWII era watches it pays homage to. Opting for a box-shaped sapphire crystal in favour of a domed aesthetic, there’s an additional layer of retro charm that adds nicely to the distinctive vintage look of the timepiece whilst also ensuring it’s capable of standing up to knocks, scratches and scuffs.

Read the whole review on Watch Gecko

⏲️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

• Why did it take 25 years to solve the greatest prison break in British history? This is the unlikely story of the trio behind Soviet agent George Blake’s infamous bolt from Wormwood Scrubs.

• Who isn’t a fan of elegantly designed Shintō shrines, tidy tea houses, meditative Zen gardens, and Marie Kondo? For decades, the Western world has been obsessed with Japanese minimalism. But Japan isn’t actually as tidy as foreigners perceive it to be. In this delightful Aeon essay, Matt Alt examines and celebrates the unique material culture and aesthetic of Japan—one defined by meticulous minimalism, yes, but also the careful curation of lots of stuff.

• What does “home” mean to you? Where is it? Who is it? For The Common Reader, essayist Jeannette Cooperman writes a series of ruminations on the buildings we live in, the childhood homes we miss, the houses we dream about or cannot afford, the geographic places that are part of our identities long after we’ve left, and even the loved ones we seek as refuge.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

Man… Patagonia really knows how to put together a documentary. In northern California, climate change and 150 years of forest mismanagement have led to some of the most catastrophic wildfires in the state’s history—including the Dixie Fire, which in 2021 devastated the Lost Sierra’s already struggling communities. In the face of that destruction, one group turned to trails for hope and to the past for a better future.

💵Pre-loved precision

Buy and sell your watches. Think of this section like old school classifieds - i don’t guarantee anything except that a bunch of people will see your ad and I’ll put the buyer and seller in touch. Want to advertise your watch? Contact us

• LOOKING TO BUY: Here’s a crazy request. One of you is looking to buy the Lotēc No. 7.5. Sure, it’s a big ask, but if any of you have one and want to sell, reach out to and I’ll put you in touch

• SOLD: Well, not really new. It’s a great looking mid-90s Tudor Submariner 75090, offered for sale by a member of the It’s About Time reader crew. I love the way it looks and seems to be in great condition. Check it out over on Chrono24.

• LOOKING TO BUY: One of our readers is looking to purchase three very specific watches: an Islander ISL-133 Mother of Pearl, a Sinn 556 Mother of Pearl or a Zelos 300m GMT Mosaic Mother of Pearl. If you’re selling any of these, reach out to us and we’ll put you in touch

-Vuk