Mido's Ocean Star 200c Brings You Into The World Of Carbon COSC Divers For A Great Price; Swatch Goes NEON; Fears And Toppers Work Together Again; New From Tuul And Jaeger LeCoultre

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Mido is shaping up to have a really, really good year. What else do we want to see from them?

In this issue:

• Mido’s New Ocean Star 200c Will Bring You Into The World Of Carbon Fibre Divers With COSC Certified Movements For A Great Price

• Swatch Reaches Back To The 80s And 90s For Design Inspiration For Six New Funky NEON Watches

• Fears And Topper Team Up Once Again For The Limited Edition “Silver Sector”

• Tuul Offers A Different Take On The Traditional Military Spec Field Watch With The Filthy 13

• Jaeger-LeCoultre Releases A Green Enamel Master Grande Tradition Calibre 948 World-Timer

Today’s reading time: 8 minutes and 44 seconds

👂What’s new

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Mido’s New Ocean Star 200c Will Bring You Into The World Of Carbon Fibre Divers With COSC Certified Movements For A Great Price

I’ve heard someone say that Mido has amazing watches that get lost in their huge lineup. And they’re not that off. Go look at Mido’s website and you’ll see that they do indeed have a huge number of models and variants, some of which aren’t as inspired in design and could easily be found in glass cases in shopping malls. But then they have stuff like the funky Commander 1959. Or the spectacularly complicated Ocean Star Decompression World Timer. And the recently shown and whimsical Multifort TV Big Date S01E01. Well, joining the more fun side of Mido is the Ocean Star 200C, a diver with a new carbon fibre case, a carbon dial, a COSC certified movement, all for a great price.

Right off the bat, I’m not a fan of carbon fibre. At least not on cars. It very often looks extremely cheap with its high gloss finish and just makes things look cheap, despite being exceedingly expensive. Carbon watches are a different story. Since it’s very difficult to arrange carbon fibres in a row for a watch case, they more often use forged carbon, which actually uses carbon flakes and give it a very different look. Which I like a lot. The case - made out of forged carbon - measures in at 42.5mm wide and 12.3mm thick. Not small by a long shot, but at 122 grams (compared to 190 of the steel model and 130 of the titanium) it should be an easy wear. Out back is a black PVD stainless steel caseback and on top, surrounding the sapphire crystal, is a black ceramic unidirectional rotating bezel. Water resistance is 200 meters.

The dial is also made out of forged carbon with large, applied hour markers filled with white Super-LumiNova. The hands have a very unique look with a semi skeletonized finish and lumed tips. The minute hand is orange lacquered to match the orange countdown scale on the bezel. There’s a day/date window at 3 o’clock with a black window so it doesn’t stick out all that much.

Inside is the Mido calibre 80 which is, of course, the Swatch Group’s Powermatic 80. This means it beats at 21,600vph and has an 80 hour power reserve. You also get COSC certification, which is not all that common in this price range. The watch comes with two straps - a black rubber with a diver’s extension and one made out of black synthetic fabric with orange stitching.

The Mido Ocean Star 200C Carbon is limited to 888 pieces and priced at CHF 2,050. Not bad for what you get. See more on the Mido website.

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Swatch Reaches Back To The 80s And 90s For Design Inspiration For Six New Funky NEON Watches

In the 1980s and 90s, Swatch as unimaginable pop culture power house. Their cheap plastic watches were a must-have and it’s clear why - they brought whimsy and colors to an otherwise very conservative accessory. And one of the biggest collections they had in the late 80s and early 90s would have been the NEON, which brought extremely bright colors. There have been loud calls for Swatch to recreate some of their biggest hits from that lineup, but that’s not happening now. What is happening is Swatch just released six new watches in the NEON line, making them look like they were dropped right out of the 80s. Kind of in line with what I predicted would be a huge trend this year.

There are six watches in the collection - three time only and three chronographs that come in a variety of sizes. What they all have in common are the transparent cases and straps, color-segmented dials and throwback graphics. The Neon Pink Podium and Neon Pink Podium Pay come in at 34mm, the Neon Rider measures 41mm. These are the time only models. The chronographs are the Neon Jelly and Neon Jelly Pay! that measure in at a chinky 47mm; and the Neon Wave which comes in at 42mm.

The colors of the watches really are as bright as they are retro - hot pink, turquoise, traffic cone orange, fuchsia, electric light blue, neon green and more. Being Swatches, and affordable at that, they are all quartz powered, which is exactly what you want from these watches.

Prices range from €75 to €180 and they don’t seem to be limited in any way. See more on the Swatch website.

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Fears And Topper Team Up Once Again For The Limited Edition “Silver Sector”

No watch changed my position on a watch brand as quickly as the collaboration between Fears and California based Topper Jewelers earlier this year. Before I saw those four California-themed watches, I didn’t really “get” Fears watches. They were beautiful, seemingly well made and I could see what their position in the market is. They just never really excited me. But the four new dials Fears created with Topper made me do a 180 and completely fall in love with Fears. Now the two brands are coming together again for a limited edition called the Fears Brunswick 38 Topper Edition ‘Silver Sector.’

As the name suggests, the new Silver Sector comes in the smaller Brunswick case that measures 38mm wide and 38mm tall, with a thickness of 11.8mm. It’s a cushion case that’s delightfully retro, but can work with both vintage-inspired and modern dials. On the right side is a charming onion shaped crown and water resistance is 100 meters.

Where the collaboration comes into play is on the dial. It ditches the sporty California-style dial for a much more dressy sector dial that has a sub seconds at 6 o’clock that’s taken straight from the Fears models of the 30s. The sector dial is as simple as it can get, light silver on the outside and darker in the inner circle. The perimeter of the dial has a railway track for the minutes, while the rest of the dial has applied stick markers and applied numerals at the 3, 9 and 12 positions. The minute and hour hands are spectacularly skeletonized and offer a unique look as they move around the sector dial.

Inside is the top-grade La Joux-Perret D100, an upgraded clone of the manual wind ETA 7001. It beats at 3Hz and has a 50 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a black barenia leather strap lined with dark blue Alcantara or you can pay a bit more on a steel bracelet.

The Fears Brunswick 38 Topper Edition ‘Silver Sector’ is limited to just 40 pieces and can be purchased only from Topper’s website or their retail store in Burlingame, California. Price is set at $4,000 on the strap and $4,400 on the bracelet. See more on the Topper website or the Fears website.

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Tuul Offers A Different Take On The Traditional Military Spec Field Watch With The Filthy 13

in 1945 the British Ministry of Defence commissioned a watch for the troops and set out strict requirements. They needed to be shockproof, have a shatterproof crystal, chronometer-regulated and waterproof, from which the W.W.W. for “Wrist Watch Waterproof” on the caseback comes from. They also needed to have maximal legibility, with a black dial, white Arabic numerals and a white railroad minute track with luminous markers, along with a small seconds subdial at 6 o’clock. 12 companies answered the call and it’s estimated that 150,000 of these wristwatches were delivered to Britain during the second half of 1945, classified for "General Service" but issued to special units, including radio operators, and artillery staff members. The watches are now known to collectors as the Dirty Dozen, named after the 12 companies that produced them. And there are copious modern recreations of the watches, from cheap Chinese pieces to high end ones made by respectable Swiss companies. Now, a Brooklyn-based micro-brand called Tuul is introducing what they call the Filthy 13, a slightly different take on the Dirty Dozen.

Let’s deal with that name first. It seemed a bit cringey when I first read it, but it actually has a decent backstory to it. The Dirty Dozen nickname is inspired by the 1967 Robert Aldrich Dirty Dozen movie starring Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Ernest Borgnine and a bunch of other stars. The movie was inspired by a real-life World War II group of delinquent combatants who would wreak havoc behind enemy lines. Only, the title failed to take into account the commander of the group, making them a group of filthy 13 fighters.

The case of the watch is simple, reminiscent of the original WWII watch, but updated for more water resistance and a slightly larger size. It measures 38mm wide, 11mm thick and has a 46mm lug-to-lug. You’ll find a strap for it easy as it has a 20mm lug width. The lugs are also drilled to make strap changes easier. The watch comes in two case materials - steel, like the original, and a very nicely colored bronze which will surely patina fantastically. Both have a bead-blasted finish. Water resistance is the more modern 100 meters.

The steel versions of the watch come with either a black or white dial, while the bronze can get either black or olive green. Other than the colors, the dials will look very familiar as they are updated Dirty Dozen watches. That mans you have large Arabic numerals, a railroad minute track and a small seconds at six o’clock. Everything is generously lumed.

Inside is the automatic Sellita SW261-1, a small seconds version of the reliable, easily servicable and extremely popular SW200. It beats at 28,800vph and has about a 40 hour power reserve. The movement usually has a date position which has been removed from this movement. The watches come on either a black, tan or green nylon strap.

The Tuul Filthy 13 is on sale now and priced at $999 for the steel versions and $1,299 for the bronze version. See more on the Tuul website.

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Jaeger-LeCoultre Releases A Green Enamel Master Grande Tradition Calibre 948 World-Timer

A week or so ago, I published a review of the Ace Jewelers X Frederique Constant Highlife Worldtimer Amsterdam. It was actually the first true Worldtimer that I spent some significant time with and I started to fall in love with the complication. I talk with people from all over the globe and to be able to tell the time pretty much anywhere in the world at just a glance of the wrist was pretty fun. And the Ace x FC version was a pretty attractive option for one with great looks and a decent price. If, on the other hand, you buy watches with no budget in mind, then Jaeger-LeCoultre has something for you. They just released a brand new green enamel variant of their Master Grande Tradition Calibre 948 World-Timer.

The watch comes in a pink gold case that’s not small by any measure. It’s 43mm wide and 14.13mm thick, but it does need a substantial case to house the movement behind the stunning Metiers d’Art dial. So let’s just move on over to that.

The watch is produced by Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Metiers Rares Atelier, who specialise in delicate artistic techniques like enamel, lacquer and guilloché, and it’s all on display here. The projection of the globe at the center of the dial is rendered in a rich green enamel, specifically champlevé enamel which requires the artisan to carve out a depression in the metal base which is then filled with consecutive layers of enamel to build up a seamless, smooth texture and bold colour. The green continents, tourbillon and cities scale are suspended on a pink gold frame that rotates above a blue guilloché backdrop that represents the oceans.

Inside the watch is the calibre 948, first used in the Geophysic line. It’s what JLC call a Universal Time calibre, meaning that even as the tourbillon rotates on its own axis every 60-seconds, the tourbillon itself is rotating around the centre of the dial once every 24-hours.

The Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Grande Tradition Calibre 948 World-Timer will not be easy to get. Only 20 will be made and, of course, the price is on request. Seeing as how the previous blue white gold version came in at $227,000, don’t expect this one to be much cheaper. See more on the Jaeger-LeCoultre website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

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A review of the Tudor Black Bay Chrono Pink

2/

Hands on with the Nivada Grenchen F77 Titanium Meteorite 

3/

A review of the CIGA Design Central Tourbillon Mount Everest Homage Edition

⚙️Watch Worthy

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

How the Rivelta Metrodive combines urban stealthiness and diver legibility

The Metrodive dial is all about legibility. As the model name indicates, we’re looking at a cross between a diver and an urban everyday watch. The handset is a mix of sword for the hours and pencil for the minutes, reminding me of pilot’s watches, and so do the Arabic numerals. The latter also evokes field watches, but the choice of typeface makes the Metrodive lean more towards the world of pilot’s watches. Furthermore, a framed date window can be found at 3 o’clock, and the shape of the date numerals might (if you are as nerdy as I am) hint at which movement is inside this model.

Read the whole review on Time and Tide

⏲️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

• AI is teh buzzword for absolutely everything. Now, Machine-learning technologies are being used in film restoration for new home video releases. But some viewers strongly dislike the results.

• Could you get by on a measly $43,000 a month? It seems Rudy Giuliani can’t. Trump’s disgraced former attorney somehow frittered away almost $120,000 in January. As a cash-strapped millennial, Arwa Mahdawi from the Guardian is delighted to share some money-saving tips

• Amanda Knox from the Atlantic argued that Jens Söring was wrongfully convicted of a double murder, and in 2019, he was released on parole after three decades in prison. Then she started having doubts about the case.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

You will learn nothing from this trailer. It’s not even a trailer, it’s 2 minutes from a movie. You will learn nothing from them and they will not spoil anything. What they are, are the first two minutes of what is perhaps the most anticipated movie of all time. Francis Ford Coppola first thought of the idea in 1973 and started developing the movie in 1983. More than 40 years later, he self financed the movie to the tune of $120 million and we will be seeing it by the end of the year. It will be a wild thing to see.

Megalopolis is a Roman Epic fable set in an imagined Modern America. The City of New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina, a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero, who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare. Torn between them is socialite Julia Cicero, the mayor’s daughter, whose love for Cesar has divided her loyalties, forcing her to discover what she truly believes humanity deserves.

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-Vuk