Breitling Releases Perfectly Sized Top Time B01 Chronos; Raymon Weil's Great Priced Freelancer Complete Calendar; Favre Leuba's Chief Tourbillon; The New Hermès Cut Le Temps Suspendu Stops Time

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Back home from an absolute wild 10 days in Geneva and Germany. I’m still dealing with the pinched nerve so the issues are a bit short, but I’ll use the weekend to write up a longer overview of what the show was like.

In this issue:

• Breitling Nods To 1960s Racing Chronographs With The Perfectly Sized New Top Time B01 Chronographs

• Raymon Weil Unveils The Freelancer Complete Calendar With A Really Great Price

• Favre Leuba Releases The Chief Tourbillon Limited Edition With A Star-Designed Movement

• The New Hermès Cut Le Temps Suspendu Can Literally Stop Time

👂What’s new

1/

Breitling Nods To 1960s Racing Chronographs With The Perfectly Sized New Top Time B01 Chronographs

I’ve spent the last ten-ish days in Geneva and Munich, which, of course, meant a lot of window shopping for watches. Seeing watches in store windows is a completely different experience than seeing them online, of course. You get to see a large part of the collection in one place and you see if it makes sense. And you know which brand impressed me the most? Breitling. They hands down have the most rounded out collection of watches, with great use of color and sizes that will fit pretty much everyone. Now, just a few weeks after they introduced a brand new three-hand Top Time collection, we’re getting three very nice Top Time chronographs with a heavy vintage influence.

Breitling has a knack for making super large watches. They’ve been doing it for years. Which is actually a good thing, because they have that segment covered very well, meaning that they can work on smaller watches to everyone’s delight. And these new Top Time B01 Racing models have quite the compact silhouette. One could even say perfect. The watches measure 38mm wide, 13.3mm thick and with a 44.1mm lug-to-lug. The lug-to-lug is so great because of the cushion shape of the case and the short lugs it provides. On top is a slightly domed sapphire crystal that pushes all the way to the edge of the case for a very vintage look and the top parts that are not covered by the crystal have engraved stripes in the corners. It uses a push-pull crown, but you still get 100 meters of water resistance, which is perfect for a chronograph.

There are three dial versions to these models, all with the same setup, but with different colors. They all have a tachymeter scale at the periphery in a contrasting color to the base of the dial, but matching the painted oval in the center that connects the two sub-dials. A very vintage look. The sub-dials have a squared circle shape and are framed in a color that matches the base dial. The green and black versions get white contrasts, while the Martini Racing version gets a white dial with blue contrasts and the famous Martini livery details in the central oval.

Inside is the well known B01 movement. It’s an automatic column-wheel chronograph that beats at 4Hz and has a 70 hour power reserve. It’s also COSC certified. The watches come on vintage-inspired rally-style leather straps.

The new Breitling Top Time B01 chronograph collection is limited to 750 pieces each and are priced at €7,250. With all the acquisitions Breitling is making, it’s clear that they are driving up the prices of their core collections to be able to position other brands below and above, which is a shame. But still, at €7,250, with those dimensions and design, this could be a really nice watch. See more on the Breitling website.

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Raymon Weil Unveils The Freelancer Complete Calendar With A Really Great Price

Technically, Raymond Weil introduced this Freelancer Complete Calendar before Watches and Wonders, but the watches got lost in the hubub of the show, so I’m only writing about them now. Good thing that I did, because I can give them a bit more attention, and that’s what most Raymond Weil releases recently deserve. First, it was the very cool Millesime collection. Now, it’s a fantastically priced Complete Calendar that’s packed in the Freelancer collection.

The watch being part of the Freelancer collection is slightly unusual, since the Freelancer is Raymond Weil’s sporty collection while this Complete calendar is very much not a sporty complication. The watch is housed in a 40mm wide and 10.15mm thick case. That’s a great thickness for this watch. You can have it in either stainless steel or with a rose gold PVD treatment. There are sapphire crystals on top and bottom, and water resistance is 100 meters, a holdover from the sporty nature of the collection.

There are two dial options, both with a sunray finish, with a dune (silver-white) dial paired with the PVD version and a blue paired with the stainless steel. The applied markers and hands have the same angled shape, and the day and month indicators have beveled openings, showing a lot of attention to detail. At 6 o’clock is a moonphase indicator that sit in a circular date display that’s indicated with a hand that matches the case material.

Inside, you’ll find the RW3281 calibre. That’s based on the Sellita SW300-1, with RW’s complete calendar module on top, which makes the 10.15mm thickness of the watch even more impressive. The movement has a 56 hour power reserve and it beats at 4Hz. The stainless steel version comes on a 5-link bracelet, while the PVD version gets a brown calfskin strap.

The Raymond Weil Freelancer Complete Calendar is available now, with both being part of the regular collection, and both priced at $3,650. See more on the Raymond Weil website.

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Favre Leuba Releases The Chief Tourbillon Limited Edition With A Star-Designed Movement

It’s easy to forget how devastating the quartz crisis was for the Swiss watch industry. One of the companies that came and went from the forefront of Swiss watchmaking is Favre Leuba, which has actually been around since 1737. The quartz crisis forced the founding family to sell the company in 1985, only to be revived a few years later and stumble again. Last year, for the third time, Favre Leuba announced that they are making another go at it, when they introduced three new collections and 22 new watches, all priced in between CHF 2,000 and CHF 5,000. Now, they’re going for something a bit more ambitious. This is the new Favre Leuba Chief Tourbillon, a limited edition tourbillon made in partnership with movement maker Jean-François Mojon of Chronode.

It comes in a familiar cushion case measuring 41mm wide and 11.45mm thick. The case is made out of stainless steel and features brushed and polished finish, with cutouts on both sides of the case. On top is a curved sapphire crystal and out back is a display caseback so you can see the nice movement. Water resistance is a sporty 100 meters.

The dial is almost as nice as the movement, with a black dial embossed with Favre Leuba’s hourglass emblem. The embossing is deep enough to create a three dimensional look to the entire dial. The indices and hands are rhodium-plated and feature the super bright Super-LumiNova C1 X1 lume on them. At 6 o’clock is a tourbillon cage which also features a blued small seconds hand.

Inside is the FL T01, a hand wound movement that’s based on Jean-François Mojon’s Chronode C502 movement. It beats at 3Hz, has a 60 hour pwoer reserve, and is finished with Côtes de Genève, blued screws and an hourglass emblem on the ratchet wheel, along with gold engravings of the logo and technical information. The watch comes on a three-link steel bracelet with polished centre links and an additional black rubber strap.

The Favre Leuba Chief Tourbillon is available for pre order right now, limited to 25 pieces and priced at CHF 24,800. See more on the Favre Leuba website.

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The New Hermès Cut Le Temps Suspendu Can Literally Stop Time

Watch journalists are a fickle bunch and you can hear it at Watches and Wonders. Just ask them what they think about a new release, and they will find a fault with it, no mater how minor it is. But every time the Hermes Cut Le Temps Suspendu came up, everyone agreed that this was a good release. And it really is, despite it having a slightly polarizing look.

The new 39mm wide case comes in 750 5N rose gold, with the crown positioned at 1:30. The mid-case has a tonneau shape, while the top remains round, for an interesting contrast of forms that Hermès calls a circle within a round shape. But it’s more complicated than that, with finishes adding to the dynamism of the case. The case is brushed, but then has long polished sections on the sides. At 8 o’clock is a triangular button that activates the trick complication of the watch. The bezel is flat and brushed, but the opaline dial version can also be ordered with 60 diamonds set in the bezel. Water resistance is 100 meters.

There are two dial options — the opaline and a limited sunburst red. The dials have applied Arabic numerals filled with Super-LumiNova. At 4 o’clock is a very good looking sunken small seconds dial with no numerals inside. Oh, and to make the watch even more fun, the seconds beat in reverse There’s a minute track with gold dots on the inside of the dial. The hands are openworked baton-style and there’s a section of the dial around 12 o’clock that has a different texture which serves as a landing pad for the hands when you press the pusher at 8.

So, what happens when you press it? You activate the “Temps Suspendu” module, developed and patented by Jean-Marc Wiederrecht of Agenhor, which suspends the time. The hands rotate around the dial to form a V around the 12 hour marker and sit there until you reactivate the time indicator. Useful? Not really. Fun? Absolutely. This all sits on the in-house Hermès H1912 calibre which beats at 4Hz and has a 45 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a two-link rose gold bracelet with polished centre links, with an additional rubber strap.

The details around the Hermès Cut Le Temps Suspendu, with no official release date or pricing, but you can keep an eye out on the Hermès website for more.

⏲️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

• I had this great idea that I would take an overnight train to Geneva for Watches and Wonders. Should have been a romantic throwback trip. Turned into a nightmare because I pinched a nerve in my neck. But I will give train travel another shot. Mostly to put together what’s described by Nylah Iqbal Muhammad for Eater in which she talks to picnic-minded folks onboard Amtrak’s California Zephyr—and in the process teases out some fascinating links between the Anabaptist and Black Southern culinary traditions. Food for thought.

• Decades ago, in the ’80s, bear sightings in South Lake Tahoe were rare. But today, close encounters between bears and humans are everyday occurrences. In this story for Alta, Jordan Fisher Smith reports on the rise of home invasions in the Lake Tahoe region—one of which turned deadly in November 2023—and the fight between animal activists and state agencies who don’t agree on how to handle the issue.

• The pace of a photograph’s development lags the instant of its capture. Before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mike Scalise acquired decades of photographs from his grandmother who, late in life, turned to instant film as a memory tool. Scalise then took up a Polaroid SX-70 and established a street photography practice, shooting at such a frequency that his film supplier confessed some envy.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

Every now and again, for no reason at all, an action scene from The Raid pops into my mind, despite not having seen it for probably a decade. The movie is that good. This video reminded me of it again, so I know what I’m watching this week.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk