LVMH Watch Week Is Here! TAG Releases New Formula 1 Chrono Collection, Stunning Purple Glassbox; LV Has The Ultimate Throwback; Hublot Shrinks Meca-10; New Ming Diver; An Incredible Greubel Forsey

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. OK, so, LVMH week has started. This means that all the brands in the LVMH Group (TAG Heuer, Zenith, Bvlgari, Hublot and Tiffany) showed a bunch of new releases. I counted about 28 new releases, so I had to pick and choose a bit what gets into the newsletter today, along with regular releases like that great Ming. But this just means we’ll have a couple of pretty great watches in the coming days. Stay tuned!

In this issue:

• TAG Heuer Finally Updates The Formula 1 Chronograph Collection With Brand New Sporty Looks

• TAG Heuer Brings A Spectacular Purple To The Carrera Glassbox And The Glassbox Tourbillon

• Ming Follows Up Their GPHG-Winning Diver With A Much Darker 37.09 Uni Diver

• Hublot Shrinks Down Their Titanium, Gold And Carbon Big Bang Meca-10 Trio

• Louis Vuitton Launches The Tambour Convergence, A New Take On An Old Display

• Greubel Forsey Shows Us How Watches Used To Be Made With The Hand Made 2

👂What’s new

1/

TAG Heuer Finally Updates The Formula 1 Chronograph Collection With Brand New Sporty Looks

We know that 2025 was going to be a big year for TAG Heuer. The bran has signed a decade-long sponsorship with Formula 1, the most popular racing series in the world, replacing Rolex, and they were already surfing the wave of success that the past couple of years brought them with the gorgeous Carrera Glassbox. Well, with the start of LVMH Watch Week (TAG Heuer is owned by the LVMH Group), we’re now getting a glimpse at what they have in store for the year. First up is the all-new Formula 1 Chronograph, a continuation of the original 1980s racing-inspired sports watch, with a reworked case, new materials and great colors. So let’s check it out.

While the new Formula 1 Chronograph still traces its roots from the 80s sport watches, it’s entirely redesigned to be a very modern sports watch. It comes in a very intricate grade 2 titanium case with angles, sharp cuts and facets all over the place, and measuring 44mm wide and 14.1mm thick. While you might instantly dismiss the 44mm size, it should wear much, much better than the dimensions would have you think. Mostly because the pretty decent lug-to-lug measurement of 47.3mm. In fact, those dimensions make it smaller than the outgoing Formula 1 chronograph. On top is a fixed aluminum tachymeter bezel that’s separated from the case with a colored ring that matches the colored details on the crown and dial, and a sapphire crystal. The titanium gives the case a matte look and you can have it in silver or with a black DLC coating. Water resistance is 200 meters.

There are five versions of the watch at launch. Well, four regular ones with black dials with either red, lime green or bright blue accents and a limited edition inspired by the Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team which comes with a blue dial that has a checkered pattern, along with red and yellow details. That one also gets a carbon fiber bezel insert. All of the dials share the same tri-compax setup with a 30 minute totalizer at 12 o’clock, a 12 hour totalizer at 6 and a running seconds at 9 o’clock. At 3 o’clock is a nicely conceived block of information that includes the Formula 1 name, TAG logo, “automatic” text and a date aperture. I like how they dealt with all of that. The colors I mentioned for the dials match the colored details on the case and appear on a ring on the periphery of the dial, as well as the central chronograph hand and sub-dial hands.

Inside you’ll find the familiar Calibre 12 automatic chronograph. Not only is this familiar to TAG Heuer owners, it’s also familiar to everyone as it’s a version of the tried and tested Valjoux 7750. It beats at 4Hz and has a 42 hour power reserve. The watches come on integrated rubber straps that come in either black or red (or blue in the case of the Red Bull Racing edition).

Prices start at CHF 4,300 for the basic titanium model. The DLC coated versions are priced at CHF 4,600, regardless of color and the Red Bull Racing Edition is priced at CHF 5,300. Not exactly cheap, but in line with what you might expect from competitors. Give me one of these with a quartz movement and under 2k, and I think that would be a killer watch! But more colors are sure to follow soon (especially those themed after specific F1 races, as they’ve done last year). See more on the TAG Heuer website.

2/

TAG Heuer Brings A Spectacular Purple To The Carrera Glassbox And The Glassbox Tourbillon

By now you know I am madly in love with the Carrera Glassbox watches. Such a simple change — just pushing the crystal all the way to the edge, with a tachymetre bezel underneath it — created an instant classic. TAG Heuer is now introducing a new model to the collection, a deep and dramatic purple, and it’s using it on both the regular Chronograph and the tourbillon model.

Starting with the simple of the two, the Tag Heuer Carrera Chronograph Glassbox comes in a stainless steel case that measures 39mm wide and 13.86mm thick. We know this case from earlier models, meaning that it will fit well on a majority of wrists, while appearing larger due to it’s massive domed crystal. Water resistance is 100 meters. The dial is also very familiar — with two sunken sub-dials at 3 and 9 o’clock, and a painted on running seconds sub-dial at 6 that also houses a date window. The dial has a sunray brushing with the incredible purple color that extends most vibrantly from 12 to 6 through the centre of the dial and fading to black on the sides. The applied markers and hands are silver, faceted and filled with lume.

Inside is the familiar TH20-00, an automatic column wheel chronograph movement that beats at 4Hz and has a great power reserve of 80 hours. The watch comes on a black perforated racing strap with a purple lining. Price is set at CHF 6,500. You can see more of the watch here.

Then there’s the Carrera Chronograph Tourbillon. To house both a chronograph and tourbillon, TAG needed a lot of space. Which is why this watch comes in a case that’s slightly larger than the regular glassbox case. It grows in both width (to 42mm) and thickness (to 14.3mm), but manages to keep a relatively compact lug-to-lug of 48mm. The dial is almost identical to the regular chronograph, with the purple that extends from 12 to 6 and fades to black, but here, instead of the running seconds at 6, there’s an opening for the tourbillon.

Inside is the TH20-09 movement, an evolution of the Heuer 02 launched in 2016. The movement is a column-wheel chronograph, has bi-directional winding, beats at 4Hz and has a 80 hour power reserve. It’s COSC chronometer-certified and it has a redesigned rotor that now looks like a coat of arms from the TAG Heuer logo. The watch comes on the same black and purple strap. Price is way more expensive, of course, at CHF 34,000. See more on the TAG Heuer website.

3/

Ming Follows Up Their GPHG-Winning Diver With A Much Darker 37.09 Uni Diver

When you make a great watch you don’t just walk away from it and do something else. You push it further. And that’s exactly what the indie-darling Ming is doing. Just a few months ago their 37.09 Bluefin diver unexpectedly took home the GPHG award for best sports watch and they are ready for more. Today they introduced the new 37.09 Uni, a much darker take on a diver. Also of note, despite this entire newsletter being filled with LVMH brands that announced new models, Ming is not part of the LVMH Watch Week, they just happened to release a new watch today.

The Uni comes in the same case as the Bluefin, meaning it measures 38mm wide, 12.8mm thick and with a 44.5mm lug-to-lug. The stainless steel case here gets a black DLC coating, but the instantly recognizable flared lugs remain. On the side are two crowns, compressor-style, with the top one setting the time and the bottom one rotating the internal 60-click unidirectional bezel. The bezel crown can be used underwater and water resistance is a pretty amazing 600 (for that thickness) meters.

The black theme is interrupted with dashes of orange and white on the dial, which makes sense to those who know that Uni is the Japanese word for sea urching, a notoriously black sea-animal that has orange internals. The dial is made from black metalized sapphire, etched and filled with Super-LumiNova X. The first 20 minutes of the internal rotating bezel are filled with orange-emitting X1. The indexes are, like so many Ming watches, engraved on the underside of the domed crystal and also filled with lume.

Inside, no suprises, as you get the Sellita SW300 automatic that beats at 4Hz and has a 50 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a black FKM rubber strap and a black-coated tuck buckle.

The new 37.09 Uni goes on sale tomorrow, January 23rd at 13:00 GMT and it will be limited to 150 pieces. However, Ming says that it’s “limited to 150 pieces for this year”, which could mean that more will show up next year. Price is set at CHF 5,250, which is about CHF 300 more than the Bluefin. See more on the Ming website.

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Hublot Shrinks Down Their Titanium, Gold And Carbon Big Bang Meca-10 Trio

People love making fun of Hublot. Sure, go for it, even though it’s a bit lazy. But if you do make fun of them, make sure you’re not parroting that YouTube clown who has convinced 7/10 of watch people on the internet that the issue with Hublot is that they use basic, off-the-shelf movements and charge hundreds of thousands for them. The watch industry is way more complicated than that, but there’s one thing that’s certain — Hublot makes pretty great in-house movements. And one such movement is housed in the their Hublot Big Bang Meca-10, now improved greatly to be fitted in a much smaller titanium case.

The Big Bang Meca-10 collection is actually what Hublot does best. They use modern materials, often experimental, and high-end movements to create watches that are certainly statement pieces and not for everyone. While the original Meca-10 came in 45mm wide and 15.8mm thick case, this new version they just unveiled is much smaller. Measuring in at 42mm wide and 13.9mm thick, the watch can be had in one of three case materials — matte King Gold, titanium or a brand new frosted carbon. These are still expressive sports watches, with exposed screws on the flat bezel, protruding black guards on both sides, and no lugs thanks to an integrated design that has a visible-from-the-front button-release for strap changing. Being a sports watch, water resistance is 100 meters.

The dial is extremely openworked, with a small seconds at 9 o’clock and a power reserve indicator a at 3 o’clock. You get floating indices filled with lume, as well as matching material hands, but not much else. That’s because they want you to see the internals, with the balance wheel visible at 7 o’clock and the rack and pinion system at 12 o’clock.

The movement you see is the manual-wound in-house HUB1205, which has pretty incredible finishings, including sating brushings on the parallel bridges and hand chamfering. The movement features regular stuff like a silicon escape wheel, and beats at a relatively standard 21,600 vph, but the real treat comes from the 2 skeletonized barrels mounted in series. These give you 240 hours of power reserve. The gold and titanium watches come on black rubber straps closed with matching-material buckles, while the frosted carbon comes on a velcro black fabric strap.

Prices are set at €23,900 for the titanium, €28,500 for the carbon and €44,500 for the King Gold. See more on the Hublot website.

5/

Louis Vuitton Launches The Tambour Convergence, A New Take On An Old Display

Back when watchmaking wasn’t as uniform as it is now, when it relied way more on individual artisans and people were still experimenting with the best way to tell the time, watchmakers used to make aperture watches, so called montres à guichet. It’s this tradition that Louis Vuitton is paying homage to with their new Tambour Convergence. But it’s not just montres à guichet they are paying homage to, but also to the convergence of crafts, as the watch is the result of the joint expertise of the Louis Vuitton ateliers in Geneva – La Fabrique du Temps (movement design), La Fabrique des Boîtiers (case-making), and La Fabrique des Arts (rare handcrafts).

Based on the Tambour case, introduced two years ago, the Convergence has a drum shape, sculpted lugs and a perfect size of 37mm wide and 8mm thick. The finishings are incredible. The tops of the lugs are polished, while the sides are sandblasted. The case is horizontally brushed on the sides and the entire top cover of the dial is hand polished. I can’t even imagine how easily that will scratch. To cases are available — a 18k pink gold case and a 950 platinum one that is set with 795 snow-set diamonds.

Then, there’s the aperture to tell the time. The gold one gets a matching hours and minutes discs, while the platinum one gets rhodium-plated discs. On both versions, the discs feature blue printed Arabic numerals, with the upper disc showing you the time and the lower the minutes. Judging from the photos, these will not be jumping discs, which would have made the watch incredibly cool.

Inside, you’ll find a brand-new in-house automatic that doesn’t use a micro-rotor like the old Tambour. Instead, it has a centrally mounted rotor, which should be considered with the 8mm thickness. The movement features a high-end regulating organ with a free-sprung balance equipped with high-precision inertia blocks. It beats at 4Hz and has a 45 hour power reserve. The movement gets sandblasted bridges with micro-sandblasted edges, perlage on the main plate, polished bevels, an LV motif on the periphery of the rotor and colourless jewels instead of conventional magenta synthetic rubies. The gold version comes on a camel calf leather, with a beige calf leather lining and yellow stitching, while the platinum one gets a blue calf leather strap.

Now, seeing the materials, construction and new movement, you would expect these to be very expensive watches. And you would be 100% right. The gold piece is priced at €37,000, while the platinum one is priced at €67,000. See more on of the gold watch here on the Louis Vuitton website or the platinum one here.

6/

Greubel Forsey Shows Us How Watches Used To Be Made With The Hand Made 2

A lot of people outside the watch world were suddenly introduced to Greubel Forsey a couple of weeks ago. When a brand as niche as that gets exposed to the general public, you can assume that it’s not presented in the brightest of situations. It caught the attention of the world because Mark Zuckerberg was wearing an almost million dollar Greubel Forsey Hand Made 1 as he was announcing that Facebook will be stopping fact-checking efforts. And while the public questioned how is it possible to have a watch cost a million dollars, Greubel Forsey just announced the Hand Made 2 which will be made in just eight pieces.

The name of the Hand Made 2 is apt, as 96% of the 270 parts of the watch are made entirely by hand, done the same way watches were before CNC and other machines. And it’s a stunning thing. In their press release, Greubel Forsey doesn’t give much technical specifications or price, they focus more on the artistry of the watch. So the technical info I could gather boils down to a white-gold case that measures 40.9mm wide and 12.8mm thick. It also simplifies things from the original, opting for a four-hand watch with 72 hours of power reserve and the innovation of a hand-shaped conical jewel power reserve.

Only five parts of this watch are not made by Greubel Forsey: sapphire crystals, case gaskets, spring bars, mainspring, and most jewels. All of the finishing, and there’s a lot of it — five artisanal crafts of frosting, black-polishing, straight-graining, polished flanks, and bevels, and the polished chamfers accented by olive-domed jewels set in gold chatons — is out of this world. Three quarters of the time spent to make the watch is spent on manufacturing parts while the rest is for finishing, and it likely takes over 5,000 hours to complete.

The movement is made from hand-frosted German silver, with polished chamfers and all surfaces (even hidden ones) are decorated to the best possible level. This base contrasts with the Grand Feu enamel dials for the hours, small seconds, and power reserve, as well as the thermally blued steel hands. The back reveals a very discreet look, with a large plate covering most of the components.

A total of eight Hand Made 2 watches will be made and orders are filled up until 2027. Each year, Greubel Forsey’s Hand Made workshop can complete only two to three Hand Made 2 timepieces, meaning there’s at least two more to be sold. And one will set you back CHF 620,000. See more on the Greubel Forsey 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

• The one thing that contributes to New York being the greatest city on earth are its 24-hour diners. While at school, I had one on the other side of the block and I can’t tell you how many nights I spent there. But all-night diners, once a quintessential New York cultural institution, have seen hard times in the wake of the pandemic, the food-delivery boom, and ever-rising costs. For The New York Times, reporter Priya Krishna plays fly-on-the-wall for 12 hours at Kellogg’s in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, bearing witness to a diverse set of patrons.

• Cal Newport is fascinated by the uniqueness of TikTok’s algorythm despite previously—and publicly—rejecting social media. In this piece, Newport explores the appeal of this form of content, talking to different users and commentating on his own first experience of TikTok (dancing baseball players and rotating snow brooms).

• The line “never let the truth get in the way of a good story” is often (quite possibly) wrongly attributed to Mark Twain. It doesn’t exactly matter all that much, because it’s still a great saying. But the line between truth and fiction is getting thinner by the day. I usually observe it from the non-fiction side, exploring how much fiction can be included before it comes just fiction, Hannah H Kim approaches it from the other side, but with the same question: What distinguishes fiction from nonfiction? The answer to this perennial question relies on how we understand reality itself.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

I know you likely don’t care about cooking as much as I do, but not only do I love Matty Matheson, this comment just sums up the video perfectly: “I love how these are becoming less of cooking videos are more of an inner monologue into Matty's stream of consciousness as he navigates his way through life”. Fantastic.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk