Breitling’s Summery SuperOceans Are All Rainbow; Mido Gives The TV A Gold PVD Cover; Farer Relaunches Monopusher Chrono With GMT; Hublot's Chef Themed Big Bang Unico; Speake Marin's Terracotta

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. It’s very clear that summer is right at our fingerprints with all of these fun-colored watches that are coming out.

In this issue:

• Wear The Rainbow With Breitling’s Colorful Summer SuperOceans In 42 And 36mm

• Mido Gives The Multifort TV Big Date A Very Swanky Gold PVD Treatment

• Farer Relaunches Their Monopusher Chronograph Line, Now With The Addition Of A GMT Function

• Hublot Teams Up With 3 Michelin Star Chef Caminada From Schloss Schauenstein For An All Black Take On The Big Bang Unico

• Speake Marin Gives The Openworked Dual Time A Very Summer Terracotta Colorway

Today’s reading time: 9 minutes and 30 seconds

👂What’s new

1/

Wear The Rainbow With Breitling’s Colorful Summer SuperOceans In 42 And 36mm

There’s something going on over at Bretling. They had an awesome - if a bit flashy - run in the 90s, and then kind of fell off the radar in the 2000s. They made decent watches, but they weren’t as adored by even their hardest of core fans. But this has been changing over the past 4-5 years. Breitling has been coming out with watches at all sizes; playing with colors, textures, and materials; reaching back into their catalogue for retro revivals and looking to the future for what’s coming. It looks to be very exciting over there. And now they have a new summer duo with a rainbow of colors - a SuperOcean 36 and a SuperOcean 42mm.

Let’s start with the larger of the two, the SuperOcean 42. As the name suggests, the stainless steel case measures 42mm wide, 12.5mm thick and has a lug-to-lug of 47.5mm. On top is a unidrectional bezel with a black insert and markings in five-minute intervals with a detailed scale for the first 15. Water resistance is 300 meters.

Moving towards the dial you’ll see the white rehaut that has the 60 minute scale and a black centre dial. The centre holds the 12 square applied hour markers in various shades of the rainbow. The hands also get funky colors - orange on the hour, green on the minute and light blue on the seconds. Even better, all of these colored markers and hands are actually Super LumiNova and glow in the dark. Inside the watch is just a bit of a disappointment, the Breitling caliber 17. It’s a Sellita-based movement which gives you only 38 hours of power reserve, but at least it’s a COSC-certified chronometer. The watch has 22mm spaced lugs and comes with either a turquoise, aquamarine, orange, or yellow rubber strap with a micro-adjustable folding clasp. The watch is priced at $5,200. See more on this watch on the Breitling website.

Then, there’s the SuperOcean 36. This one also comes in a stainless steel case, but it gets a 18k red gold bezel grip, with a white ceramic insert on the bezel. The watch measures 36mm wide, 12.2mm thick and has a lug-to-lug of 42.4mm. Water resistance is still 300 meters. The dial and rehaut on this version are all white, with the same application of colored markers and hands. The watch comes with the same caliber 17, has a narrower lug width of 18mm, and comes with a white rubber strap with a stainless steel folding clasp. The watch is priced at $7,300. You can see more about it here.

2/

Mido Gives The Multifort TV Big Date A Very Swanky Gold PVD Treatment

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 Mido is also doubling down on their TV shaped Multifort model, which is a direction I very much approve of. Their latest iteration of the Multifort TV Big Date comes with a new rose gold PVD case and chocolate brown dial that’s just fantastic.

The Multifort TV Big Date was revived only a year ago, but it seems that we have had it for much longer. The case measures 39.2mm x 40mm and is 11.5mm thick, made out of stainless steel with a vertically brushed bezel - with a very nice recessed sandblasted pip at noon - and polished bevels. The entire case gets a rose gold PVD treatment. Water resistance is 100 meters, aided, by the screw down crown.

The dial is brown, yes, but it’s not that simple. First, the brown color comes in a gradient - lighter brown in the center and almost black on the edges of the dial. In addition to the gradient, the dial also has horizontal brushed grooves that give it an interesting texture. The hour indices are recessed into the main dial with alternating round markers and trapezoids at the cardinal positions. At noon, you’ll find the huge two-disc date display that has a brown background.

Mido is a Swatch Group brand, so it’s no surprise that the calibre 80 that’s inside is actually a variant of the Powermatic 80. This means you get a movement that has a ck-resistant and anti-magnetic Nivachron balance spring and a 80 hour power reserve, as well as a customised Mido rotor with Geneva stripes. The watch comes on a pretty great looking brown rubber strap that closes with a pin buckle that gets a rose PVD treatment.

The Mido Multifort TV Big Date in rose gold PVD is available now and sells for €1,300. See more on the Mido website.

3/

Farer Relaunches Their Monopusher Chronograph Line, Now With The Addition Of A GMT Function

It’s not that the monopusher chronograph has some kind of mythical status in the watch world. It’s more about the fact that there are so few of them, especially in reasonable price ranges. So, when a brand brings back a monopusher they used to make, with great design, and an acceptable price, that’s overall great news. But when they also seamlessly integrate a GMT function into all of this, well, pop the champagne. These are the new Farer Monopusher Chronograph GMT Cobb and Segrave.

The stainless steel case of the two new Monopushers is very interesting. Quite large, it measures 41mm wide and 14.5mm thick. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Because of the C-shaped case that has super short lugs, the lug-to-lug measurement is just 44mm, while 2.25mm of the thickness goes to the double-domed sapphire crystal, meaning the actual case is just 12.25mm thick, which is not bad at all for a chronograph with a GMT function. The top of the case has a brushed finish, while the sides are polished and feature a very deep crosshatched diamond pattern ‘harlequin’ pattern that gives a hell of a lot of character to the case. Water resistance is 100 meters.

Like I said, there are two versions of the watch - Cobb and Seagrave - mostly differentiated by the color scheme, but also a bit of functional changes. The Cobb has a beautiful sunburst sky-blue dial, surrounded by a cream 24-hour scale that has the night time hours in dark blue and the daytime in orange. The hour and minute hands are lacquered navy blue, the central chronograph hand is orange and there’s a framed date window at 3 o’clock. The logo sits at 6 o’clock, there’s a cream 30 minute totaliser at 12 and a running seconds at 9, which gives it an unusual and fun setup.

The Seagrave is much more serious than the Cobb. It gets a fully black dial, sunray brushed sub-dials at 12 and 6 o’clock, a date window at 3 and a black and white 24 hour GMT scale. There are pops of color on the hands - blue for the central chrono, bright orange for the GMT hand and green on the running seconds.

Due to the different sub-dial layouts, the two watches have different, but also extremely similar, movements inside. They are both hand-wound Sellita movement from the SW500 family. The Segrave uses the SW536 M MP, while the Cobb has the SW530 M MP a. Both movements have identical features, incorporating a monopusher chronograph complication, operated by a pusher at two o’clock, with a central chronograph, elapsed seconds hand and 30-minute counter, and the difference between the two movements comes from the positions of those sub-dials. The movements are elaboré-grade, beat at 4Hz and have a 62-hour power reserve. Additionally, this movement also has a caller style GMT function which makes it possible to independently adjust the GMT hand. Farer is well known for their strap options, and these two are no exception - there are 13 options to chose from, including St. Venere, Granolo or suede leather, rubber, or a stainless steel Milanese bracelet.

Now, for the price. It starts at €2,350 and goes just a bit up depending on the strap you get. That’s not cheap, but go ahead and find a monopusher GMT chronograph with as great a design for less. In fact, I’m not sure one even exists, at any price. See more on the Farer website.

 4/

Hublot Teams Up With 3 Michelin Star Chef Caminada From Schloss Schauenstein For An All Black Take On The Big Bang Unico

In a previous life, I used to run quite a popular food magazine. This offered me a pretty unique look into the culinary world and friendships with some of the best chefs in the country. I spent quite some time with them, often with a lot of alcohol, and I can tell you that every single one of them is obsessed with watches. And for some strange reason, this cross section of chefs was also deeply in love with Hublot. A very strange coincidence, it seemed at the time. But it might not necessarily be a coincidence. Hublot has appointed many of the world’s best chefs, including chefs like Yannick Alléno, Anne-Sophie Pic and Clare Smyth, as their ambassadors. Another ambassador is Andreas Caminada, who heads the kitchen at Schauenstein Castle in the village of Fürstenau, Switzerland. The two have teamed up to celebrate Caminada’s 20 years at Schloss Schauenstein with a special edition Big Bang Unico All Black Schloss Schauenstein.

I find this watch very interesting, but not necessarily in a great way. Black is a somewhat unpleasant color in cooking, often used to evoke a strong response from the diner or as a gimmick. Sure, a black risotto is delicious, but a black burger bun is just nonsense. So the choice to make this watch all-black is a strange one. The watch comes in a 42mm wide micro-blasted ceramic case that is all black. More black can be found on the plated satin titanium bezel with black rubber inserts, as well as on the pushers. The dial is equally as black, completely openworked and with Caminada’ logo on the small seconds register. The large stencil-style numerals hover over a void that offers a look into the movement and all the lume in the numerals and hands is also black.

Hublot often and rightfully catches flack for selling ETA or Sellita-based movements for outrageous sums of money. While this still happens, they have obviously put a hell of a lot of effort into their own movements. Like this one, the automatic HUB1280 Unico 2 calibre. It has a lot of nifty features, including a column wheel and date disc on the dial side. It beats at 4Hz and has a 72 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a black rubber strap with vertical stripes, closed by a ceramic/titanium folding buckle.

The Big Bang Unico All Black Schloss Schauenstein is limited to 20 pieces and priced at €29,600. Another one-off piece with the Uccelin Foundation will be auctioned off for charity. See more on the Hublot website.

5/

Speake Marin Gives The Openworked Dual Time A Very Summer Terracotta Colorway

The 2000s were an interesting time for watches. Following large consolidations in the 90s, along with the emergence of new brands and experiments with new(ish) materials, it seemed that there was a proliferation of independent brands on the horizon. One of these brands was Speake Marin, founded by Peter Speake-Marin in 2002, formed with he idea of making high-end, different and special watches. And the Dual Time Openworked really is that. Now, right ahead of summer, Speake Marin is giving the watch a colorway inspired by the most ubiquitous rich-person sport: tennis. This is the Speake Marin Openworked Dual Time Terracotta.

The watch uses the very traditional Speake Marin drum-shaped Piccadilly case with straight lugs and made out of titanium. You can have the watch in either 38 or 42mm, both of which are 12.35mm thick, and all of them a polished top and bottom with a brushed midcase.

While the name says this is an Openworked dial, don’t expect anything excessive. The most prominent aspect of the dial is the bright terracotta mainplate. There’s a small seconds counter at 1:30 with an orange frosted finish, grey markings, and blue-emission Super-LumiNova applied to the 5-second intervals. A date indicator surrounds the small seconds. Flanking the date are the rhodium-plated bridges for the barrel and rotor. There’s a two-tone GMT indicator and central Big Ben-style hands for local time. In addition to the fun terracotta color, you also get blue, orange and green lume emissions from the lume at night.

Inside is the proprietary SMA01 micro-rotor calibre, designed and manufactured by Le Cercle des Horlogers in La Chaux-de-Fonds. It beats at 28,800vph and has a 52 hour power reserve. The movement is decorated with Geneva stripes on the bridges and the micro-rotor has an orange topper. The watch comes on a white rubber strap with a titanium pin buckle.

The Speake Marin Openworked Dual Time Terracotta is priced at CHF 31,900 for the 38mm and CHF 32,400 for the 42mm, both prices without tax. See more on the Speake Marin website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

1/

A review of the Citizen Attesa Layers of Time

2/

Hands-On With The Robot Minor In Le Mans Blue

3/

A review of the Aquastar Benthos 500 II Founders Edition

⚙️Watch Worthy

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

Here’s the thing about wearing the Amida Digitrend: you can’t take a traditional wrist shot with it

Just about every individual aspect of this watch is appealing. It’s a somewhat obscure retro throwback, it has a genuinely unusual display, an inventive and clever movement, and it can hold court with other creative, affordable indie releases that challenge what a “micro-brand” really is in 2024. But I keep coming back to the wrist shot. This watch simply doesn’t photograph like any other watch on the market, save the very few watches with similar “driver” style displays, all similarly niche in their appeal. I wonder how much traction a watch like the Digitrend can get in the current watch climate where social media remains incredibly important to spreading the word. This is a watch that you really have to wear on your wrist (for a while) to fully understand.

Read the whole review on Worn and Wound.

⏲️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

• Nine years after construction was complete on a spectacular Tadao Ando house in Malibu, it was sold to Kanye West. He admired Ando, and wanted an Ando, but didn’t “like the interior”. Since 2021, West has turned the architectural marvel into a complete ruin. And this is becoming more of a trend with celebrities buying stunning houses.

• Greg Kading is a super controversial detective who cracked the Tupac murder case, connecting Sean Combs to the crime. Turns out, he maybe solved Biggie’s murder too.

• The opioid epidemic has made fishing, already a dangerous job, even more deadly. When there’s an overdose at sea, fishermen have to take care of one another. C.J. Chivers examines how one man’s death in 2021, a mere 72 hours into his fishing career, may have prompted a sea change

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

May 11th 1996, a fast moving storm trapped three climbing teams high atop Mt Everest. The exhausted climbers were soon lost in a fierce blizzard and far from the safety of Camp 4 at 26,000 feeet. Renowned Climber/filmmaker David Breasheers, who was on the mountain that fateful day, returns to Everest to tell the complete story of what really happened on that legendary climb.

💵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 Ōtsuka 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

Want to let us know what you think about the newsletter? Go to our survey and fill it out.

-Vuk