TAG Heuer Brings Back The Funky Formula 1, Messes Up Release Of The Year; Raymond Weil's Millésime Chronograph; Certina Releases Padel Ready Watch; And Formex Has A Gold Meteorite Essence 39

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. I try to keep this newsletter a pretty cool place where I inform you of what’s new and keep my criticism out of it. But the Formula 1 really got me riled up. It could have been the watch of the year.

In this issue:

• TAG Heuer Teams Up With Retailer Kith To Bring Back The Funky Formula 1, Messes Up What Could Have Been The Release Of The Year

• Raymond Weil Brings The Tri-Compax Chronograph To Their Very Popular Millésime Sector Dial Line

• Certina Steps Into Padel, A Sport On The Rise, With Special Edition DS-7 Chrono Designed By Prominent Padel Player Marta Ortega

• Formex Gives Their Futuristic Essence 39 A Gold-Coloured Meteorite Dial At A Pretty Decent Price

Today’s reading time: 6 minutes and 44 seconds

👂What’s new

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TAG Heuer Teams Up With Retailer Kith To Bring Back The Funky Formula 1, Messes Up What Could Have Been The Release Of The Year

Love it or hate it, there is very little doubt that the Swatch x Omega MoonSwatch collaboration will be remembered as one of the most significant watch releases of this decade. Yeah, it’s not the highest quality timepiece, but no other watch entered popular culture with such a bang, causing buyers and resellers to queue up for days and even now, two years after initial release, Swatch is having a tough time keeping up with demand. They sold a million pieces in less than a year and it showed up as a significant item on the Swatch Group bottom line and increased sales of the actual Moonwatch. And it was only a matter of time before other brands caught on how much of a cash cow this is and started doing their own versions. From the very beginning, the smart money was on TAG Heuer to revive their iconic Formula 1 collection, already made out of plastic. And it finally happened. TAG Heuer teamed up with streetwear retailer Kith - whose founder Ronnie Fieg just recently showed up in a Hodinkee video with his immaculate collection of Formula 1 watches - to bring back the iconic 80s watch. But, instead of a blockbuster that will take the world by storm, it seems to me that TAG has fumbled what might have been the watch of the year.

But first, what is the TAG Heuer Formula 1. It was a hugely popular watch that TAG Heuer launched in 1986 to mark their involvement with Formula 1, but also it was the first TAG Heuer ever made, after TAG bought Heuer. It’s easy to describe it as a plastic watch, but it was, in fact, a steel watch that’s wrapped in fiberglass, and you could have that first generation in either 28mm or 34mm. Later, the chronographs grew in size a bit, but they all kept their affordable approach which meant a quartz movement and a lot of low-cost materials. It was an instant hit, and how could it not be seeing how they were introduced at a price of $135, or about $370 in today’s money, and fantastic and loud colors. The plastic Formula 1 models saw a huge resurgence over the past year or two, offering great looking fun summer watches for $200-300, in line with my predictions that the 80s and 90s will be making a huge comback in watch design. Later versions grew in size with the chronograph and the Formula 1 is still a model in the TAG Heuer catalogue, with a bunch of colors, but way more expensive and with more solid materials.

The TAG Heuer Formula 1 x Kith is supposed to address this and relaunch the same original Formula 1, with 10 watches that convey the same ethos as the original. There are surprisingly few and, honestly, very logical updates to the watches. There are 10 models all together and the major changes come in the form of sapphire crystals that stand in for plastic ones, while the straps have been updated from plastic to rubber. The size remains charmingly small at 35mm wide, 9.45mm thick and with a 40mm lug-to-lug.

Not all of the watches are plastic or mounted on rubber straps, some are steel on the outside and come on a steel bracelet. There’s a rather complicated lineup. Seven of the 10 will be sold only through Kith and are linked to specific Kith stores across the globe. These are the best looking, with the wildest colors. The black one with gradient numerals in the bezel represents New York, the full red is Tokyo, the creamy white is Miami, the yellow is for Toronto, the multicolored variant is for Hawaii, the steel with green bezel is Paris, and the steel with blue bezel is Los Angeles. Then there are two watches that will be exclusive to TAG Heuer retailers, both with black PVD cases and colorful bezels in solid green or blue, with matching straps and black pinstripe dials. Last, there’s one model that will be shared between Kith and TAG in the classic black bezel with red accent colorway and a eggshell colored dial meant to look like an original F1 from 1986 that has patinated slowly over time.

That’s it for the good stuff as things only get a bit cringey and outright bad from here. First off, the watches that will be sold through Kith will have “Kith & Kin” engraved into the cases at 12 o’clock, which is just incredibly strange. Then, for the first time ever, TAG has allowed someone to edit their logo and replace the TAG part of the logo with “KITH”. The Kith moto “Just Us” is also printed on the dial. It’s all very much a wet dream of a 14 year old hypebeast that just made his first several hundred dollars dropshipping “his brand” and found out that TAG made cool watches before his parents were born so he decided to make them better.

Things only get worse from here. The major issue is the limited nature of the watches. All of them are super limited, with the Kith exclusives being limited to 250 on straps and 350 on steel bracelets. The TAG exclusives are limited to 825 pieces each, and the shared release is limited to 1,350 pieces. And now, for the real kicker. The price. It’s $1,500. Or, you can buy the entire box set with all 10 watches for $18,000. Yeah, that’s right, they will charge you $3,000 extra if you buy them all together. Or, what, $3,000 for a case?

A shame really. Longtime readers will know I don’t usually take such a harsh stance on a new release. But here, it’s bothering me very much that TAG Heuer is on a steep upwards trajectory and had a chance to dominate the market this year. If they made them unlimited and priced them between 300 and 500, this would have made them hundreds of millions. And you know, it would be a watch I could actually wear. Sure, they might turn around and actually make them, but this release just leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. See more on the TAG Heuer website.

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Raymond Weil Brings The Tri-Compax Chronograph To Their Very Popular Millésime Sector Dial Line

When you have a hit on your hands hold it close to the chest and run with it as far aw you can. Raymond Weil has a very diverse lineup with some very interesting watches. But it’s only been the last several years in which they found their true blockbuster watch, the Millésime line. It seemed that the model came out of nowhere, an incredible retro dress piece styled around a sector dial. The Millésime Small Seconds brought the watch onto a whole new level, especially after they won the Challenge Watch Prize at the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève, the most prominent awards in the watch world. Now, they’re expanding the Millésime with a duo of tri-compax chronographs, the Raymond Weil Millesime Automatic Chronograph.

Keeping with the retro style of the watch, Raymond Weil tries to keep the case as small as possible and it comes in at a comfortable 39.5mm. Sure, it’s still an automatic chrono movement, which beefs up the thickness a bit, but not outrageously so at 12.9mm thick. On top is a box-shaped sapphire crystal, surrounded by a flat plain bezel and the lugs are rounded. The watch has a brushed finish with some highly polished sections for contrast.

There are two versions of the watch, differentiated by the color of the dial - one all black and one dark blue with a reverse panda layout. Same for both is the sector dial with numerous tracks and an embossed central crosshair that’s barely visible. The external tracks are white, one for the tachymeter and one for the minute minutes grading. The third track is for the applied baton hour markers. The sub-dials are matte silver colour with black tracks and blue numerals on the blue dial and all black with white markings on the black dial. The minute and hour hands are obelisk shaped, nickel-plated and lume treated.

Inside is the RW5030 automatic chronograph, which is a rebranded Sellita SW510. This is a great cam-operated chronograph that has the same architecture of the Valjoux 7753. It beats at 28,800vph and has a 56 hour power reserve. The watches come on calfskin leather straps which match the dial colors of the respective watches.

The Raymond Weil Millesime Automatic Chronograph won’t be delivering until October 2024, but when it does it will be priced at €3,725. The watch is still not on the Raymond Weil website, but you can keep checking here for when it does.

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Certina Steps Into Padel, A Sport On The Rise, With Special Edition DS-7 Chrono Designed By Prominent Padel Player Marta Ortega

If you have even a remote interest in sport - and I have none - you have likely heard of padel, the fastest growing sport in the world. Invented in Mexico, this squash-like sport is really becoming a global sensation. While most compare it to tennis, the squash comparison is more apt seeing as how the court is enclosed in glass walls. The game is played with a smaller racquet that doesn’t have strings, instead it has a solid, hollow, surface with a bunch of holes drilled into it. It’s both slower and faster than tennis and squash at the same time, and I’m kind of intrigued about it. I guess a lot of people are, making it the fastest growing sport. And a global sponsor of the sport since 2021 has been Certina, the Swatch Group Brand, who has now teamed up with Marta Ortega, a Spanish player and former world number one for a special edition DS-7 Chrono Padel Edition.

The watch is based on the familiar DS-7 Chrono, meaning it comes in a stainless steel case that measures 41mm wide and 12,15mm thick. I can’t really find a reliable lug-to-lug measurement, but I think it could be quite short thanks to the fact that it doesn’t have regular lugs but rather a flat surface on each end to which the strap attaches with a proprietary connection. The case for this edition gets a black PVD coat and the same treatment can be found on the pushers and the crown. There’s a fix black bezel that has a tachymeter scale.

The dial is where things get very much different. It’s made out of carbon fiber, a material that’s often found on the faces of padel rackets. The dial is all black, save for the apperance of two significant colors - there’s a ring around the entire dial in green, the same green that Certina uses in their logo, while neon yellow, the same you would find on a tennis (or padel) ball is used for the central chrono hand and a small padel ball at 6 o’clock.

There are two ways to make a watch that can stand up to the shocks that would be transferred to it with each hit of the padel or racket. One is to engineer the hell out of it, sort of like what Richard Mille did with their RM 027 that Nadal famously wore while playing. But this will put you in the high six, low seven figure price range. The other is to use a quartz movement which is much more shock resistant. Certina chose the latter, so inside is ETA PreciDrive G10.212 movement. Of course, this gives the watch that instantly recognisable ETA quartz sub-dial layout, which some people can’t stand. The watch comes on a black textile strap with green stitching and a push-button folding clasp.

The Certina DS-7 Chrono Padel Edition is available now and priced at €685, which is not a bad price for a robust sports watch that can take a beating. See more on the Certina website.

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Formex Gives Their Futuristic Essence 39 A Gold-Coloured Meteorite Dial At A Pretty Decent Price

For years, meteor dials were the cream of the crop of watchmaking. Brands would make special editions with meteors and charge tens of thousands of dollars extra for them. And there’s no denying that a Rolex GMT, Zenith or Speedy look pretty freaking awesome with a meteor dial. But are you willing to spend $40k on one? Well, you don’t have to, thanks to the proliferation of microbrands in the watch world. Brands like Awake, Zelos and Xeric all offer watches with meteor dials priced under $1,000. Now that meteor dials are no longer just a symbol of wealth, it allows brands to experiment with how they implement it. And this is exactly what Formex did with their latest release, the 39mm Essence that gets a Space Gold meteorite dial.

Based on the Essence, a Formex model that comes in either 39 or 43mm, this one takes on the case of the smaller, which means it’s 39mm wide, 10mm thick and has a comfortable lug-to-lug of 45mm. The case is made out of brushed and polished 316L stainless steel, with an internal section made from grade 2 titanium that houses the movement. That internal titanium section is attached to the outside case with springs, allowing it not just to be more shock resistant, but also flex a bit while wearing, making it comfortable. It’s a very futuristic watch, with multiple facets and chamfers. On top is a plain bezel that is cut out in the four corners of the case to accommodate the four screws that hold everything together. On top is a sapphire crystal and water resistance is 100 meters.

This is not the first time Formex is using a meteorite in the Essence, but that was just a regular meteor. For this new model, they gave the meteorite disc an electroplated finish that gives it a rose gold, almost salmon, finish which is just fantastic when paired with the natural patterns of the Muonionalusta meteorite. The dial has applied baton indices with a gunmetal finish and filled with Super-LumiNova. The same finish can be seen on the hour and minute hands. There’s also a date window at the 6 o’clock position.

Inside is the Sellita SW200-1 movement which we have grown to know as a not particularly amazing movement, but one that does its job reliably and is easy to service. This version, however, does get a performance bump in the form of COSC chronometer-certification. It beats at 4Hz and has a power reserve of about 40 hours. The watch comes on a stainless steel bracelet with screwed links and a buckle that can be extended 4mm. You can swap the steel for leather or rubber strap with a carbon fibre deployant clasp.

The first 100 pieces of the Formex Essence 39 Space Rock Automatic Chronometer will be numbered, but they aren’t supposed to be limited. You can preorder one now, with orders starting in July. The price is set at $1,890 on the leather or rubber and $1,990 on the steel bracelet. See more on the Formex website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

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A review of the new downsized Doxa Sub 200T

2/

Hands on with the Sinn U50 Hydro oil filled diver

3/

A review of the Patek Philippe Alarm Travel Time 5520RG

⚙️Watch Worthy

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

Nivada Grenchen leans heavily into 70s funk with a lapis lazuli dial on the F77 

The blue of the lapis is vibrant and eye-catching, while the speckled pattern evokes a starry night’s sky. And because it is made of stone, each lapis lazuli dial will be unique. Despite being something of a novelty in today’s market, the lapis lazuli dial is true to the 1970s vibe Nivada Grenchen is trying to capture in the watch. Stone dials had their moment back in that era, and lapis dials are particularly collectable. (Just look up the lapis Rolex Datejust that now sells for tens of thousands of dollars.) Fashion is cyclical, and the recent popularity of meteorite dials looks like it might presage a return to the stone dials of yore. Don’t be surprised if you see other brands follow Nivada Grenchen’s lead

Read the whole review on Worn & Wound

⏲️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

• “Can you believe it? We're in the middle of a drought, and the water commissioner drowns,” the mortician in the movie Chinatown quips as the war over water rights in California is about to shift into a higher gear. The movie was inspired by the California water wars and one of the plot-points of the movie is the Water Department drying up farmers’ land and diverting water so it can be bought cheaply. Well, it seems that something similar has been going on in real life, but without the conspiracy part. In the San Joaquin Valley, an irrigation official named Dennis Falaschi has been accused of stealing more than $25 million worth of water from the federal government over the past two decades. Falaschi siphoned water out of the Delta-Mendota Canal with a secret pipe. Some farmers considered him “the Robin Hood of irrigation”; others were outraged that a water official had been stealing and selling liquid gold to farmers and other districts, and using public funds to pay for everything from housing remodels to car repairs to concert tickets for himself and his employees. A very wild, very California tale.

• In this interview, acclaimed author Salman Rushdie speaks with Erica Wagner about the deeply personal costs of championing free speech, the process of writing his new memoir, Knife, optimism as a disease, and the comedic foreshadowing of the attack that nearly took his life.

• Ok, this is a pretty wild story from Vanity Fair. The Catholic Church has been pretty vocal that in vitro fertilization is immoral and that they oppose it. Well, in an ironic twist of fate, it seems that they played a huge role in its inception. A 1957 encounter between two men—Bruno Lunenfeld, an endocrinologist, and Don Giulio Pacelli, an Italian prince and one of Pope Pius XII’s nephews—marked the start of the journey toward the first successful IVF pregnancy. The miracle substance that made it possible? Urine. Specifically 30,000 liters of urine from 100 postmenopausal nuns. Keziah Weir intertwines history, science, religion, and politics in this fascinating piece.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

In 2011, Patagonia ran one of the best advertisements of all time. Just ahead of Black Friday, the most consumerist-focused day of the year, the New York Times published a full page ad of Patagonia that had a picture of an iconic jacket from the brand with huge letters above it that read: “Don’t buy this jacket.” Patagonia then went on to explain how they believe that to lighten our environmental footprint, everyone needs to consume less. Businesses need to make fewer things but of higher quality and customers need to think twice before they buy. Now, they just put out a whole documentary on the subject. The Shitthropocene is a mock anthropological view of humanity's consumption habits, turning a satirical (yet brutally honest) eye on how everything is turning to shit and why the impulse towards more might destroy us all.

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-Vuk