Seiko Adds Sky Blue Dial To Presage Style60’s; Zenith Releases Pink Defy Skyline For Charity; Echo/Neutra's Radically Different Watch; An Affordable 70s Inspired Depancel; And A Crazy Hautlence

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. I have to say, the new echo/neutra blew me away. I’m not sure it’s a watch I would buy, but it so completely different from everything they make that I have to say: kudos!

In this issue:

• Seiko’s Latest Presage Style60’s Comes With A Sky Blue Dial, But Only In Europe

• Zenith Releases Third Pink Watch To Mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month, This Time A Defy Skyline

• Echo/Neutra Adds A Radically Different Watch To Their Collection, The Retro-Modern Square Rivanera

• Depancel’s Allure Chronograph MecaQ Just Might Be The Best Entry-Level Integrated Bracelet Chrono

• Hautlence Releases The Sphere Series 2, A Very Dramatic Black And White Jumping Hour Contraption

Today’s reading time: 8 minutes and 15 seconds

👂What’s new

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Seiko’s Latest Presage Style60’s Comes With A Sky Blue Dial, But Only In Europe

The Great Price Hike Of The Early 2020s seems to have settled and pretty much all the brands have bumped up their prices. And while we balk at how brazen Jaeger-LeCoultre has been with increases, it seems that no other brand has received as much criticism for their higher prices as Seiko. Whether it’s the divers that have blown through the €3,000 price range, or the sub €1,000 offers that still come with mediocre (at best) bracelets, meh movements and hardlex crystals, Seiko is no longer the brand where you go for your bang-for-buck. Look at Casio and Citizen for that from now on. But even still, you can’t but very much like some of the watches they put out. One of these is the new Seiko Presage Style60’s SRPL19, a limited edition for the European market with a really nice light blue dial.

There’s about a dozen variants of Presage Style60’s watches, and this one comes in a relatively classic format. Sure, it sounds large at 40.8mm wide, but makes up with a relatively decent 12mm thickness — that’s including the box-type Hardlex crystal — and pretty good 47mm lug-to-lug measurement, making it easy to wear. The brushed and polished case is topped with a very nice fixed bezel with a matte, dark blue aluminum insert and a 60 minute scale. Despite this looking like a full-fledged sports watch, you only get 50 meters of water resistance. Decent, sure, but could be so much better with 100 meters.

Then, there’s the dial. The light blue is instantly noticable, but it takes a while to see the subtle brushing it has — radial in the central and outer rings, and vertical on the ring that holds the applied, beveled, hour markers. Thehands are dauphine shaped, sharp and filled with lume. At 3 o’clock is a date window framed in steel. The logo at 12 o’clock is printed instead of applied, which is of note.

Inside is the well known caliber 4R35. Seiko is notorious for their really wide accuracy ratings, -35 and +45 seconds a day, but in practice it’s much better than that. The movement beats at 21,600vph and has a 41 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a brushed three-link bracelet and you get an additional beige sailcloth strap.

The Seiko Presage Style60’s European Limited Edition SRPL19 is limited to 3,000 watches and it can be bought only in Europe. And sure, at €640, there are other watches that might have better specs, but it’s not that a bad price. See more on the Seiko website.

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Zenith Releases Third Pink Watch To Mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month, This Time A Defy Skyline

For more than 30 years, October has been known as Breast Cancer Awareness Month with many institutions and brands coming together to raise awareness about the horrible disease of breast cancer. Many institutions and brands come together (something that is often criticised as a publicity stunt, but I won’t go there), put on pink colors and host events and sales to drum up money for cancer research. For the thrid time, Zenith is teaming up with the Susan G. Komen Foundation to mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month with one of their watches with a pink dial. First, it was the Chronomaster Original, last year we got the Chronomaster Sport and now Zenith is releasing a Zenith Defy Skyline with a pink dial.

Unlike the previous pink Zenith Defy, which wasn’t made to mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month, this limited edition comes in the larger 41mm case that measures 12.5mm thick and has a 47mm lug-to-lug. The majority of the case is brushed, with polished bevels on the case and on the 12-sided flat bezel. Being a sports watch, it’s 100 meters water resistant.

The dial is obviously the focal point. It gets the well known four-pointed-star pattern embeded into it, with a brushed surface and a really strikign shade of pink applied. At 9 o’clock is a sunken-in running seconds sub-dial — but not one that counts the seconds up to 60, instead it counts 1/10th of a seconds super fast — while at 3 you’ll find a date aperture with a matching pink date wheel. Great work on that. The hour markers are applied and filled with lume, just like the simple baton hands.

Inside, as hinted by that 1/10th of a second sub-dial, is the very well known El Primero 3620 automatic. It beats at 36,000vph and has a 60 hour power reserve. The winding rotor is star-shaped and visible through the caseback. The watch comes on a really nice brushed stainless steel bracelet and comes with an additional white rubber strap. That has to look great with the pink.

Only 100 pieces of the Zenith Defy Skyline Pink will be made, with 20% of the proceeds going to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Price is set at €10,800. See more on the Zenith website.

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Echo/Neutra Adds A Radically Different Watch To Their Collection, The Retro-Modern Square Rivanera

The Italian microbrand Echo/Neutra has been making some of my favorite watches for some time now. The Cortina 1956 collection has some of the best looking vintage watches with great use of color, while the Averau 39 Big Moon is one of the most impressive moon phase watches on the market, especially with that lumed dial. But all of them share one thing — they are mostly 60s inspired chunky sports watches. And one would expect their next release to follow this established and well-functioning pattern, as it’s unusual for indie brands to pull radical moves. Because radical moves are usually expensive. Well, Echo/Neutra just dropped a huge surprise. Their new Rivanera collection is a radical departure from everything they’ve done so far, a reimagining of the dress watch with strong art-deco influences but certainly very modern. Even if you don’t like the watch, you have to admire their bravery.

The most radical novelty, as is obvious, comes from the shape of the dial. It’s very much rooted in the square watches of the 1930s, exactly what you would expect from an elegant sports watch. The dimensions of the watch reflect a vintage piece — 27mm wide, with a 40mm lug-to-lug, and an incredible 5.5mm thin. 5.9 mm with the crystal. But they take that expected dress watch, and rework it for something extremely modern. Not only is the watch made out of Grade 5 titanium, it gets a very rough sandblasted finish. All of this gives the case a very sporty anthracite look. Come on! That’s cool. But to remind you that it’s still not a sports watch, water resistance is limited to 30 meters.

Then, there’s the dial. It’s Art Deco through and through. You can get it in either all black or grey, with a very dramatic railroad minute track on the perimeter, done in either white or black. At 6 o’clock is a small seconds display and the only text on the dial is the very simple echo/neutra logo near 12 o’clock. The minute hand is a simple pencil shape, while the hour has a little flair with its Breguet shape.

To keep things super thin, Echo/Neutra put the hand-wound ETA 7001 caliber inside, which beats at 21,600 vph and has a decent power reserve of 42 hours. There’s a very nice circular cutout on the back that shows off the movement, which is a good thing because it looks fine. Rivanera will be available with two straps: black Horween shell cordovan and black Alpine calf leather.

The new Echo/Neutra Rivanera goes on sale on October 10th, with the first 200 being delivered before Christmas. Price is set at €1,490, which is a price that’s hard to gauge as there’s not much you can compare it to. Maybe the Baltic Prismic, which has the same movement? See more on the Echo/Neutra website.

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Depancel’s Allure Chronograph MecaQ Just Might Be The Best Entry-Level Integrated Bracelet Chrono

Depancel has a whole collection of pretty groovy racing-inspired watches, ranging from regular round watches with great colors to a pretty spectacular square watch that could be called a Monaco homage if it didn’t carry its own cool charisma that well. And their watches range from a relatively affordable €800 to some pretty pricey stuff that will reach €3,000. Well, now they’re adding something new to their Allure Chronograph collection, the MecaQ. Not only is it an integrated bracelet sports watch, a first for the collection (and Depancel, I think), it’s also their cheapest watch yet. And as such, it’s super interesting.

Everything about the Allure Chronograph MecaQ is very 70s inspired. The cushion-shaped case has deep vertical brushing, polished bevels and a very retro-inspired size. It measures 36mm wide, 10.95mm thick and has a 42,80mm lug-to-lug. On the side you’ll find a polished oversized crown with a red strip down its middle and two polished pushers. On top is a sapphire crystal and water resistance is rated at 50 meters.

Then, there’s the dial. It’s very much a 1970s racing chronograph dial, with a black base and red and orange details all over the three sub-dials and the tachymeter scale. The applied hour markers are elaborate combinations of polished metal of different sized and lume that bisects them, while the hands are polished with orange strips running down them. The central chrono hand is fully painted orange. The sub dials give away what’s inside, so at 3 o’clock is the dreaded and mostly useless 24 hour indicator, a running seconds at 6 o’clock — but without a seconds scale on the edge, instead you get just a slightly corny “motor racing instrument” text — and a 60 minute chronograph counter at 9.

So, as you might have guessed it, inside is the Seiko SII VK63 mecaquartz, a hybrid movement that uses accurate quartz to tell the time and a mechanical chronograph function to make it look butter smooth. The watch comes on a nicely designed integrated steel bracelet with polished and brushed finishing. No word on whether the clasp has micro-adjust.

The new Allure Chronograph MecaQ goes on sale October 15th and is priced at €595, with taxes included. That’s a good deal for a good looking watch. See more on the Depancel website.

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Hautlence Releases The Sphere Series 2, A Very Dramatic Black And White Jumping Hour Contraption

Just by looking at photos, Hautlence watches might be either one of those Chinese novelty watches that mess with the way they display time and sell for a few hundred euros, or a meticulously crafter work of art that costs as much as a small apartment in my city. Now they’re updating their Hautlence Sphere line with the Series 2 in back, white and grey, a departure from their otherwise wild colors.

You know what you’re looking at as soon as you see a Hautlence watch. They are paerhaps best known for their TV-shaped cases that measure large and are large. But manageable. The Hautlence Sphere Series 2 comes in at 50.8mm wide, 15.6mm thick (although, 4mm of that is the very domed sapphire crystal). 50mm wide is crazy, but it’s only 43mm tall, making it fit on a lot of smaller wrists. The case has a lot of angles to it, and a polished and satin finish. Additionally, the mid section, lugs and bezel get an anthracite PVD treatment. And surprisingly, water resistance is 100 meters.

Like the Series 1, the Series 2 has a two-part dial. On the left is a titanium sphere with engraved numerals filled with Super-LumiNova which is actually a jump-hour display that you can see working through openings in the sphere. On the right is a retrograde minutes display which has a satin-finished grade 5 titanium minute hand with anthracite PVD and filled with white Super-LumiNova. The white minute track on the base of the dial is made from Globolight, the chunky lume material, and glows a cool blue.

Inside is the same movement as the Series 1, the in-house, manually wound Calibre A80. It beats at 3Hz and has a power reserve of 72 hours. The watch comes on a black rubber strap.

The Hautlence Sphere Series 2 will be limited to 28 pieces and priced at CHF 69,000. See more on the Hautlence website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

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A review of the Nomadic Fior 555 GMT

2/

Hands-On with the New 2024 Omega Speedmaster FOiS (First Omega in Space)

3/

A review of the MMI Cuttlechron

⚙️Watch Worthy

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

Charlie Paris’ new Grande Randonnée watches promise outdoorsy practicality at a reasonable price

While the two versions of the Charlie Paris GR have different movements, each offering different functionality, design-wise they both look very similar. (Duh.) They come with raised Arabic numerals for the hour markers, fully-polished and lumed baton-style hour and minute hands, and white seconds hands complemented by arrow-shaped tips. On the 24 Hour model, the marker at the six is replaced by a small arrow pointing up, and on the chronograph version the 3 and 9 markers are replaced by arrows pointing out while the six had to make way for a date aperture. Both versions come with recessed, fully graduated minute tracks where the five-minute increments are highlighted with whole numerals. On the minute track, we find the only plots of lume, located at the cardinal points.

Read the whole review on Time + 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

• The Warriors is more than a cheesy, dystopian cult classic of a flick, defined by its leather vests and iconic ad-libs. It’s also a dark-as-hell potboiler, written by a radical who came to condemn the film which made his work famous. “While the movie that sparked a moral panic on its release became a comfort food to stream in a vastly safer luxury city,” Harry Siegel writes, “the book still speaks many decades later to the trains today and the shared nightmares about what can happen when most everyone is afraid of most everyone else.” We’ll see how many shared nightmares remain in The Warriors’ latest incarnation: a musical adaptation, courtesy of Lin-Manuel Miranda, the man behind Hamilton and Moana.

• Marijuana was legalized in New York at the end of 2021, but for a while, the regulations that governed it seemed all-but-designed to lock out legal sellers, and give hustlers free rein. Into that jumble stepped old-school pot dealer Jay Bulger, who tried to figure out how to push his product legitimately. Without spoiling the story, let’s just say it didn’t go great, even when the authorities finally cracked down on the unlicensed smoke shops. As a dealer friend tells Bulger, “The black market will never die.”

• This started as a conversation between Katie Drummond, WIRED’s chief, and Bobbi Althoff, the MommyToker-turned-celebrity-interviewer whose deadpan chats and awkward dances have taken over your For You page. Somehow, it turned into a talk about money and loss and fame and desire and how a single yogurt could end a marriage.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

Watches of Espionage released a new video, so you know we have to have a viewing party.

💵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 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