Oris Is Summer Ready With Watermelon Colored Aquis'; Bell & Ross Attempts A Dressy Gold Look; Circula's New Bright Dials; Oak And Oscar Releases Small(ish) Chrono; Ulysse Nardin Updates Divers

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. You know summer is coming when all the brands start releasing brightly colored divers. It’s my favorite time of the year!

In this issue:

• Oris Is Really Getting Summer Ready With Two Watermelon Colored Aquis Date 41.5mm Watches

• Bell & Ross Attempts A More Dressy Look With A Steel-Gold Case And Opaline Dial

• Circula Completes New Color Releases For The AquaSport II With Very Nice Yellow And Orange Degrade Dials

• Oak And Oscar Introduces A Trio Of Chronographs With Great Dimensions And An Interesting Manually Wound Movement

• Ulysse Nardin Expands Diver Line With Diver Net OPS And Diver X Skeleton OPS Made Out Of Sustainable Materials

Today’s reading time: 8 minutes and 55 seconds

👂What’s new

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Oris Is Really Getting Summer Ready With Two Watermelon Colored Aquis Date 41.5mm Watches

You know the summer is just around the corner once watch brands start releasing vivid colors on their watches. And this is exactly what’s happening right now. Oris has released two new versions of their diver, the Aquis Date 41.5mm, that are really summer ready thanks to their watermelon themed dials - one bright green, the other a vibrant red.

You know these watches very well. The stainless steel case measures 41.5mm wide and 12.9mm thick and feature an almost completely brushed finish with a couple of very strategic polished details. On top is a unidirectional rotating bezel which at first glance seemed to me to be completely made out of stainless steel, but no, look at that phot again. They are in fact white ceramic inserts with red or green markings, and they looked absolutely fantastic. The bezel surrounds a domed sapphire crystal, while the caseback gets a mineral glass window into the inside. This is Oris’ most popular diver, so you know the water resistance will be decent, and it is - 300 meters.

The dials are, of course, what it’s all about. Both get a sunray brushed finish, one in a deep red and the other in a really vibrant green. You still have the lumed Alpha hour and minute hands and shield-shaped hour markers. There’s a date aperture at 6 o’clock and I would have loved if it was a color matched date wheel inside. Instead you get a white wheel and black text on it.

Inside is the very well known Oris 733 calibre. I say it’s very well known because it’s not their in house offering. Instead it is a slightly redecorated Sellita SW200-1 movement that has a red rotor. This means it beats at 28,800vph and has a 38 hour power reserve. The watches come on a three-link stainless steel bracelet.

The Oris Aquis Date 41.5mm “Taste of Summer” capsule collection is on sale now and shouldn’t be limited in number. Price is set at CHF 2,400. See more on the Oris website.

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Bell & Ross Attempts A More Dressy Look With A Steel-Gold Case And Opaline Dial

Sure, Bell & Ross does make some watches you would describe as traditional, but there’s no argument that their bread and butter comes in the form of the square watches that mimic airplane instruments. These are sporty and often avant-garde pieces that would never be considered a dress watch. And yet… Here’s Bell & Ross with a new BR 03 White Steel & Gold making their best effort to offer a more elegant watch. I’m not so sure it worked, but it sure is interesting.

In terms of dimensions, there are very few changes to the watch, as it’s based on the recently updated BR 03 series watch. That means its stainless steel case measures 41mm in both dimensions, and it’s actually a bit thinner than the regular stainless watch and measures a very nice 9.4mm thick. There’s a sapphire crystal on top, a solid caseback and 100 meters of water resistance. The biggest difference comes on the bezel and the crown, which are made out of 18k rose gold.

To keep things classy, B&R chose to use a white dial for this version. Well, technically, not white but opaline. They get the opaline effect by layering a matte silver finish onto a polished dial surface and working it with Levant stone and cream of tartar to create a subtle texture and a milky shade of white. The applied hour markers and hands are rendered in rose gold, with the hour and minute hands getting a Super-LumiNova treatment. There’s also a date window at the dreaded 4:30 position, but B&R is among the best at implementing the date because they keep it very small, circular and colro-matched, making it blend in very well.

Inside is the same caliber other three-handed models from the BR 03 lineup use, the BR-CAL.302-1 automatic, which is in essence a rebranded Sellita SW300. This is a great movement that beats at 4Hz and could do with a slightly longer power reserve than the 54 hours that it has. The watch comes on a brown calfskin leather strap that tapers from 24mm at the lugs to 22mm at the buckle.

The Bell & Ross BR 03 White Steel & Gold is on sale right now for a price of €6,900. Whether you like the look or not is a personal preference. But what you shouldn’t like is the price. The regular stainless steel version with a black dial is priced at €3,700 and I really can’t see applied numerals, a gold bezel and crown being worth a €3,200 premium. See more on the Bell & Ross website.

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Circula Completes New Color Releases For The AquaSport II With Very Nice Yellow And Orange Degrade Dials

It’s been almost a month to the day that I wrote about a couple of updates to the diving watch lineups of the family-owned German Circula brand. They introduced two new SuperSport watches, as well as a dial update to their AquaSport II watch. It was a very nice teal dial with a wave-texture on it. Well, now the brand is completing their pre-summer releases of new dials for the AquaSport II with two very different, but very attractive dials. The two watches come with a yellow or orange dials that fade to black.

The AquaSport II is a vintage-inspired diver, taking on the best parts of all skin-diver cases. This means you get very short lugs, but in a more modernised and curvy look. Made out of stainless steel, the case measures 40mm wide, 12.6mm thick and, thanks to the stubby lugs, a very comfortable lug-to-lug of 46mm. On top is a 120 click unidirectional rotating diver's bezel, with a black sapphire crystal insert, and that surrounds a sapphire crystal. Water resistance is 200 meters.

While the edition introduced a month ago had a turquoise dial that gave of a very uniform summer look, the two new dials are much more dramatic. Still summer-ready, but a bit more… sophisticated? Entertaining? You get what I mean. They both share the central disc with a subtle engraved pattern encircled by a chapter ring that houses the minute track and large block markers for the hours. The hour markers and the sword hands are filled with lume. And then there’s the colors. They start off bright orange or bright yellow in the center and fade to an almost black color towards the edge. This leaves the chapter ring with a very dark shade of the main color, something that really looks amazing.

Inside the watches is the very well known and familiar Sellita SW200 in Elaboré grade. You know and love this movement. It’s reliable, it’s easily servicable and surprisingly accurate in my experience. It beats at 4Hz and could do with a better power reserve as it only has 38 hours. You can have the watch on a black tropic dial or a metal “Jubilee” style bracelet.

The two new Circula AquaSport II models are available now and priced at €899 on the rubber strap and €999 with the metal bracelet. See more on the Circula website.

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Oak And Oscar Introduces A Trio Of Chronographs With Great Dimensions And An Interesting Manually Wound Movement

So many chronographs, especially in the world of microbrands and small indepenents, suffer from awkward proportions caused by the fact that chronograph movements, especially automatic ones, take up a lot of vertical space. To combat this somewhat, the Chicago based micro Oak & Oscar, opted to ditch the automatic part and offer a sub-13mm chronograph with three minimalist dial options. This is the Oak & Oscar Atwood chronograph.

Oak & Oscar is a microbrand that relies very much on their lifestyle-centric design and keeping an ear close to the watch community. So, they heard all the gasps for smaller watches. The Atwood measures 39mm wide, 12.9mm thick and has a very nice 46mm lug-to-lug. On top is a domed sapphire crystal, surrounded by a sloped bezel without any markings. The case and bezel are brushed, just like the steel three-row bracelet. Water resistance is 50 meters.

There are three dial options for the Atwood and all three feature a matte finish and a sandwich construction, while the colors are white panda, gray with white sub-dials, and navy blue with white sub-dials. The tri-compax setup has the 30-minute totaliser at 3 o’clock, 12-hour at 6 o’clock and a running seconds at 9 o’clock. The sandwich dial sees the 12 numeral and bar indices as cutouts that are filled with lume. The hour and minute hands are also lumed filled, while the central chronograph has the Oak & Oscar signature barrel-shaped counterweight.

Inside is a movement we don’t get to see very often, despite it being made by one of the most prolific movement manufacturers in the world - Sellita. It’s the Sellita AMT5100M, a hand-wound chronograph with a column wheel and a flyback function. It beats at 28,800vph and has a 58 hour power reserve. A very interesting setup. The watch comes on either the stainless steel three-row bracelet that tapers from 20mm to 16mm and has a quick-adjust clasp or a brown Horween leather strap. The watch also comes with a nylon strap, strap-changing tool, and waxed canvas watch wallet.

The new Oak & Oscar Atwood is a nice looking watch, with great proportions and a really interesting movement inside. I’ve heard some bemoan the slightly boring design of the dial, but this is a personal preference. What isn’t a personal preference is the price. The Atwood is priced at $2,450 on the leather strap and $2,650 on a steel bracelet. That’s a hell of a lot of money. While the $2-3,000 price range is not full of chronographs, I can think of at least 5 from more established brands with designs I like more. I wonder how well the Atwood will do. See more on the Oak & Oscar website.

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Ulysse Nardin Expands Diver Line With Diver Net OPS And Diver X Skeleton OPS Made Out Of Sustainable Materials 

If you’re not very familiar with the Ulysse Nardin lineup, I’m willing to bet that you know them best for the very futuristic Freak model or their extremely classic marine models that take inspiration from UN’s storied past. What you might not know is they make some pretty out-there dive watches as well - divers that are very much the focus of Ulysse Nardin’s environmental efforts. To help clean up the seas, UN often uses recycled fishing nets. And this is the material that they just used for the new Diver and Diver X Skeleton models that also get a camouflage look, something that UN has been doing for a while with their models.

Starting off with the more capable of the two, the 300 meter water resistant Diver Net Ops measures 44mm wide and 14.81mm thick and is made out of Nylo, a material made out of recycled fishing nets, and Carbonium, a blend of carbon fiber and epoxy, along with a central core of recycled stainless steel to hold the movement. Carbonium is used to make the unidirectional rotating bezel, giving it a camouflage-like look of forged carbon fiber. The rough textured dial gets a khaki-green colorway with a huge X engraved into it, a signature for the line, and there’s a small seconds counter at 6 o’clock that integrates a date aperture. Inside is the UN-118, UN’s in house base calibre which has a DiamonSil escapement and a silicium hairspring. It beats at 4Hz and has a 60 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a khaki green strap partially made from recycled fishing nets, but you can also have it on a green rubber strap and a black ceramic UN element. The watch is priced at €13,289.

Then there’s the Diver X Skeleton which has a slightly lower water resistance at 200 meters and is slightly larger at 44mm wide and 15.7mm thick. The case is made out of black DLC titanium with sandblasted and satin finishes, with a Carbotanium unidirectional rotating bezel. Fitting with the name, the dial and movement are skeltonized, with a oversized double X making up the focus of the dial. There’s a large oscillator and silicium escapement at 6 o’clock, you get black hour indices and a lot of Super-LumiNova. Inside you can see the UN-372 movement, with a large X-shaped rotor. It beats at 21,600vph and has a 72-hour power reserve. The watch comes on either a khaki fabric strap made in part from upcycled fishing nets or a green rubber strap. The watch is priced at €27,570. You can see more about both on the Ulysse Nardin website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

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A review of the new Tudor Black Bay Master Chronometer

2/

Diving with the 18k red-gold Blancpain Fifty Fathoms

3/

A review of the Alpina Seastrong Diver Extreme GMT

⚙️Watch Worthy

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

The Raymond Weil Millesime is the perfect example of evolved design

Adding a moonphase complication to the Millesime makes a ton of sense. For starters, it suits this style like a charm. Additionally, the dial was already perfectly balanced for a sub-dial at 6 o’clock because the original model had a sub-seconds layout. The “Automatic” line remains under a subdued moonphase display with a face drawn on the moon.

Read the whole review on Fratello

⏲️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

• You know how cults always have a promise of armageddon in their teachings? Have you ever wondered what happens when the prophesied armageddon inevitably doesn’t happen? Harper’s piece on what happened to Elizabeth Clare Prophet and her Church Universal and Triumphant cult after their followers

• The notorious double homicide of pharmaceutical billionaire Barry Sherman and his wife Honey remains unsolved. Now the inheritance battle over their fortune threatens to pry open a family’s vault of secrets and add another unseemly chapter to the saga of a gruesome crime. This is the bitter aftermath of a billionaire murder mystery. You know it’s going to be good when it’s a true crime story in Town and Country magazine.

• Lewis Hamilton is Changing Lanes. He’s got one last season with Mercedes, and then F1's winningest driver will join Ferrari. But he’s looking far beyond that, toward the moves he’ll make when his racing career ends.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

I won’t say this is a great video. The investigator who talks about fake watches does make some pretty weird claims - most of which I assume is due to nervousness in front of the camera. But his stories of him, and his dad before him, hunting down fake watch and bag sellers in New York are pretty fun!

💵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

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-Vuk