Rolex Quietly Updates Daytona With Seven Dial And Case Configurations; Alpina Keeps It Simple With New Hand-Wound Tropic Proof; Parmigiani Continues To Put Out Subtle Luxury; And Hublot Celebrates 20 Years Of Big Bang

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. I was set on slowly moving away from Watches and Wonders coverage, but there’s still so much left to see. And then Rolex goes and updates their website quietly, as if they need more attention on them.

In this issue:

• Rolex Quietly Updates The Daytona With Seven Different Dial And Case Configurations

• Alpina Keeps It Super Simple With The New Hand-Wound Tropic Proof

• Parmigiani Adds Some Really Great Colors To Very Good Looking Chronograph, Skeleton And Others

• For Hublot, Watches And Wonders Was All About Celebrating 20 Years Of The Big Bang

👂What’s new

1/

Rolex Quietly Updates The Daytona With Seven Different Dial And Case Configurations

Exactly a week ago, Watches and Wonders kicked off with a bang. And the brand all eyes were on was, of course, Rolex. Days before the show we’ve seen leaks of possible models from the Crown brand, and most of the rumors turned out very much correct. Rolex put fort a number of new models, including the Land-Dweller. But what wasn’t mentioned in any of the press material is the fact that Rolex was introducing seven new variants of the Daytona. Rolex is a huge ship, and as such, it operates in incremental developments and evolutions, without causing much uproar. But even from them, it’s super rare to see a quiet update of a model line. They love pointing out their new models. And yet, here we are, with seven new Daytonas that Rolex only marked “new” on their website. I only caught this because the good folks over at Monochrome noticed the updates.

Of course, since Rolex loves crawling evolution, nearly all the updates are super incremental. This is a continuation of the update we got in 2023 — updated case dimensions and design, a redesigned bezel, a slightly new dial layout and the new calibre 4131 — only now introduced to a lot of very popular models that Rolex people have loved before.

Starting with the most popular of the bunch, by far, the John Mayer Daytona Green dial, now reference 126508-0008. This is, of course, the solid yellow gold Daytona with a green dial. This new version gets a slightly lighter shade of green with gold sub-dials and gold hands and markers. Then, there’s the new 126509-0005, a white gold case with a sunray-brushed blue dial with blue sub-dials. Then, there’s my favorite, the Everose Gold Daytona with a sunray-brushed brown dial with black sub-dials, which comes on either a full Everose gold bracelet or on an Oysterflex rubber bracelet (with a ceramic instead of an Everose bezel). Then, we also see the return of the meteorite dials for 2025, in all three versions we’ve seen them before — yellow gold, Everose and white gold, all three on Oysterflex bracelets, all three with ceramic bezel and all three with some sort of meteorite dial.

The prices on all of these will sound quite on the limited. The John Mayer sells for €48,800, the blue dial white gold goes for €51,900, the chocolate dials are priced at €39,900 on the Oysterflex and €51,900 in gold, while the meteorite dials go for €41,850 for the yellow gold versions and €43,750 for the white gold or Everose variants. Like I said, Rolex doesn’t blow you away with its inventiveness. It just slowly iterates. Well, slowly on the watch, because as Monochrome notes, the meteorite dial versions retailed for €30,950 and €32,150 just four years ago. See more on the Rolex website.

2/

Alpina Keeps It Super Simple With The New Hand-Wound Tropic Proof

Alpina has been very busy over the past several years with building their Heritage collection, started in 2023 to mark their 140th anniversary. This is a series that leans heavily on Alpina’s heritage to great and sometimes not so better effect. But their lates release at Watches and Wonders, the Alpina Tropic-Proof, is something really, really cool.

Of course, 1960s watch enthusiast might have recognized that name, as Alpina made the model back in the 1960s. The original came in a 34mm wide case and featured a manually wound case. Well, you’ll be pleased to know that the new Tropic-Proof matches the original remarkably well. It comes in a three-piece stainless steel case that measures 34mm wide and just 9.23mm thick. On top is a glass-box sapphire crystal and water resistance is not great at 30 meters.

There are two dials to choose from, white or black, and they both have the same layouts and hardware. Around the periphery is a minutes track, you get applied silver faceted hour markers and polished hour and minute hands filled with beige lume. At 12 o’clock is the old Alpina logo.

Inside, you’ll find the AL-480 calibre, a Peseux based hand-wound movement that beats at 4Hz and has a 42 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a beige Alcantara strap that’s closed with a pin buckle.

The new Alpina Heritage Tropic-Proof is a regular addition to the lineup, priced at CHF 1,795. See more on the Alpina website.

3/

Parmigiani Adds Some Really Great Colors To Very Good Looking Chronograph, Skeleton And Others

It took me years to understand what Parmigiani watches were all about. Why were such relatively simple watches so extremely expensive. Well, I got it eventually. That was the point of the whole thing — to make completely understated spectacular watches. And that’s very much what they did at Watches and Wonders, with the addition of a few wild-ish outliers. Parmigiani has a website where they list all of their novelties.

• This isn’t the first time we see the Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante. But it is the first time we see it with this mesmerizing Verzasca Green dial. It comes in a 40mm stainless steel case, with a knurled platinum bezel and a wonderfully textured dial that has hands in white gold for the local time and rose gold for the second time zone, which is just incredibly cool. Inside is the PF051 movement with a 48-hour power reserve and price is set at CHF 28,700.

• While we’ve seen plenty of upgrades to the Tonda model line, it’s the Toric that’s getting an update now, and in the form of a perpetual calendar with the Toric Quantième Perpétuel. Unlike most perpetual calendars, this one comes with an extremely minimalist display, which shows day, date, month, and leap year with just two sub-dials. You can have the watch in either an18-carat rose gold case with a beautiful “Golden Hour” dial or a platinum “Morning Blue” dial. They are limited to 50 each and priced at CHF 85,000 in gold and CHF 92,000 in platinum.

• Sure, Parmigiani’s CEO might claim that they are all about understated luxury and not making a spectacle, but then they go and make this Tonda PF Skeleton Slate Green. It’s beautifully skeletonized, with circular openings, unlike any other watch I’ve seen before, and then there’s the crazy beautiful color. 40mm wide, made out of steel, powered by the PF777 movement, limited to 50 pieces. This thing is priced at CHF 65,000 and it’s absolute perfection.

• Parmigiani isn’t afraid of a little innovation, either. With the new Tonda PF Sport Chronograph they are debuting their new Ultra-Cermet material. A cermet is a composite material consisting of ceramic (cer) and metallic (met) materials and Parmigiani claims they are the first watchmaker to craft a complete case in Cermet, from the case middle to the pushers. The dial is treated in Blackor, 9-carat gold-nickel deposit, giving it a black color and you get a choice of either Milano Blue or London Grey sub-dials and straps. Priced at CHF 39,900.

• And last, we have just a slight update to the familiar Tonda PF Chronograph. Measuring 44mm wide, it has a Mineral Blue dial with the Grain d’Orge guilloché. The movement beats at 5Hz and has a 65 hour power reserve. Priced at CHF 31,500.

4/

For Hublot, Watches And Wonders Was All About Celebrating 20 Years Of The Big Bang

Love them or hate them, Hublot has had quite the show. And it was all about their flagship model, the Big Bang, which was introduced 20 years ago. So it makes sense to celebrate. And they did so with models that range from ostentatious and a bit gaudy, all the way to extremely… well, extremely everything. While the criticisms of Hublot selling ETA movements for tens of thousands are behind us since Hublot now makes most of their own movements, and they’re quite good movements, there is a bit to be desired maybe in the design department. And I don’t just mean making them better looking, whatever that means for you. No, I would actually like a bit more diversity in the Big Bang design. They tend to blend together. But let’s check out what they have in store for this year. And as always, Hublot put together one site with all of their new releases, so you can follow along there.

• Starting off with the base of the collection and the 20th anniversary celebration, we have five new Hublot Big Bang 20th Anniversary watches. Each comes in a different case material — titanium, King gold, red ceramic, black ceramic and Magic gold — with the case measuring 43mm across. The dials look like carbon fibre, but that’s just a stamped pattern. The watch is powered by the in-house HUB1280 which gives you 72 hours of power reserve. The titanium and black ceramic are limited to 500 pieces and priced at €21,600 and €26,200 respectively, the King Gold is limited to 250 pieces with a price tag of €39,900, and the red ceramic and Magic Gold are limited to 100 pieces, with respective price tags of €33,000 and €42,200.

• Hublot is very well known for their sapphire cases and this Hublot Big Bang Unico Water Blue Sapphire gets a brand new aqua-colored version that matches perfectly with the light blue strap. Being a Unico, it gets the Unico 128 chronograph movement, with a column wheel and flyback function, it has 72 hours of power reserve. Limited to 50 pieces and priced at a pretty steep €143,000.

• But it’s not all about sapphire for Hublot, they’ve had a lot of advancements in their models. That’s why they put out this Hublot Big Bang 20th Anniversary “Materials and High Complication” Set. Available only as a set of five watches, you get a frosted carbon cathedral minute repeater chronograph, a blue carbon cathedral minute repeater tourbillon, a tourbillon chronograph water blue sapphire, as well as a tourbillon chronograph in transparent sapphire and red ceramic. The set represents “five of the most incredible feats of the Big Bang collection”. The full set of unique pieces will set you back about €1.1 million.

• Speaking of sapphire, there’s this Hublot Big Bang 20th Anniversary “Master of Sapphire” Set. Again, available only as a set (but now limited to five sets, not unique pieces), Hublot made five versions of the sapphire case — transparent, lime green, dark blue, light blue and purple — and equipped it with the Meca-10 movement which not just looks good, but gets 10 days of power reserve. This will run you about €600.000.

Bringing it back to watches you could buy, if you wanted to, this is a pair of his-and-hers duo of ceramic Big Bangs in either Petrol blue or Mint green. Both colors look great, with the larger one coming in at 42mm and the smaller one measuring 33mm with a diamond studded bezel. I can get behind these. The smaller one is priced at €18,200 and the larger one at €25,000.

⏲️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 much I love a good interactive story. This one is as beautiful as it is sad and inspiring. It’s following a group of mountaineers that are on a quest to recover dead bodies from Mount Everest. It’s as moving as it is beautiful.

• Wired follows the rise of ‘Frankenstein’ laptops in New Delhi’s repair markets and how India’s repair culture gives new life to dead tech.

• In an utmost unexpected tribute to the late actor, comedian Will Forte writes about the time when he lived with Val Kilmer. It’s exactly the story you would expect from Forte.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

Mission: Impossible turned Tom Cruise into the action superstar he is today. And his popularity grows with each episode of the movie. So, you know that the last film of the series will have to one up everything else. And from this trailer, it’s pretty clear that Cruise is pulling out all the stops. It’s fascinating he’s still alive.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk