TAG Heuer Says Goodbye To Its Partnership With Red Bull, Hello To Formula 1; A New Norqain; An Important Bangalore; A Watch For All The Big Kids; And A Completely Wild Zentih Defy Extreme Jungle

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. The Blok watch is the release of the day for me. Can’t wait until I get two of them to share with my daughter.

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In this issue:

• TAG Heuer Could Be Saying Goodbye To Its Partnership With Red Bull With New Formula 1 Chronograph

• Norqain Mixes Black And Gold On The Smaller Adventure Sport 37mm

• Bangalore Watch Company Celebrates Women In Aviation With The New MACH1 Silk Scarf

• Blok, The Maker Of The Best Kid’s Watch, Releases A 38mm Version For Big Kids

• The Zenith Defy Extreme Jungle Chronograph Is The Wildest Watch You Will See This Week

👂What’s new

1/

TAG Heuer Could Be Saying Goodbye To Its Partnership With Red Bull With New Formula 1 Chronograph

Technically, the latest release from TAG Heuer is paying homage to the 20 years Red Bull has spent in Formula 1, shooting up in record time to become one of the best-performing teams in the sport. But it could also be a goodbye to their collaboration with Red Bull, which started in 2016, the same year Max Verstappen joined the team. Now that Rolex is out as the main watch sponsor of Formula 1 and TAG Heuer is in, pretty much everyone is expecting that TAG will be leaving Red Bull very soon. But for now, we get this TAG Heuer Formula 1 Chronograph x Oracle Red Bull Racing watch, a new version of previous collaborative watches with Red Bull.

As the name says, the watch is based on the TAG Heuer Formula 1, an often-forgotten collection in the TAG catalogue that’s expected to get a huge revival with the new Formula 1 partnership. This is very much a sports watch you would have expected to see 20 years ago, with a huge steel case with a DLC coating, that measures 43mm wide and 12.4mm thick. The caseback is engraved with Red Bull’s team and unique 20th-season logos, as well as a chequered flag motif. On top is a steel bezel with a blue aluminum insert that has a red TAG Heuer shield at 12 o’clock and a tachymeter scale. You also get 200 meters of water resistance.

The dial continues the look of previous TAG and Red Bull collaborations. It gets a heavily textured dark blue base, just like the base of the Red Bull car, with all the color details that can be found on the Formula 1 car. You get a yellow chronograph central hand, yellow minute markings on the chapter ring, red details on the 6 o’clock subdial, as well as around the 2 o’clock pusher. Unlike previous editions, it also includes the Red Bull logo striped across the dial from 7 to 10 o’clock.

Inside, you won’t find a mechanical movement. Instead, it’s a Ronda quartz movement, capable of 1/10th of a second display, with a 30-minute totalizer and date window at 4 o’clock. Battery life is rated at about four years. The watch comes on a blue rubber strap with a black DLC pin buckle.

The new TAG Heuer Formula 1 Chronograph x Oracle Red Bull Racing is limited to 3,000 pieces and priced at €2,600. While steep for a quartz watch, it’s one of the lowest-tier entries into the brand. See more on the TAG Heuer website.

2/

Norqain Mixes Black And Gold On The Smaller Adventure Sport 37mm

Norqain is back with a new take on luxury sports watches. This one comes in at a smaller size than the otherwise chunky 42mm version of the Adventure collection and with a more subdued colorway. The new Norqain Adventure Sport 37mm gets a black DLC and gold color combination for a unisex sports watch.

The 37mm version of the Adventure Sport is the smallest of the three on offer (the other being 40 and 42mm), and this one also measures 11.5mm thick. It’s made out of stainless steel and is covered in a black DLC coating. On top is a unidirectional bezel with a 18k red gold knurled edge and ceramic insert that has red gold graduations every 5 minutes and a more detailed scale for the first 15 minutes. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The dial has a black base and the brand’s signature pattern inspired by the Swiss mountains. On top of that are gold-plated, faceted, diamond-cut hands and applied markers. At 3 o’clock is a gold-framed date aperture with a black date disc inside.

Inside, you won’t find anything special. Yes, Norqain calls it the calibre N08, but in essence, it’s just a decorated Sellita SW200-1. That means that it beats at 4Hz and thanks to its slightly higher grade has a 41-hour power reserve. The watch comes on an 18mm wide black rubber strap.

The Norqain Adventure Sport 37mm DLC & Gold is available now and is part of the permanent collection. The price is set at €3,950. See more on the Norqain website.

3/

Bangalore Watch Company Celebrates Women In Aviation With The New MACH1 Silk Scarf

The watch world can be full of prejudices. For decades people dismissed non-Swiss watches before the Germans and Japanese proved them wrong. But this was way before our time. But in our lifetime, we laughed at Chinese watches, considering them inferior, only to see them step from underneath that shadow with a couple of brands that make sensational high-end pieces at great prices. But the one country that’s still maligned is India. Despite an incredible history of watches and watchmaking, people will still ask: “Is it a Mumbai special”, when referencing a watch that originates from India. The Mumbai special, of course, being a reference to refinished watches whose origin is often not disclosed. Well, there’s at least one company that’s changing this perception — Bangalore Watch Company. They are focusing on celebrating notable achievements from India, without dipping into stereotypical colors and motifs, with a very special focus on aviation. And their latest release is the MACH1 Silk Scarf, a watch that celebrates women in aviation.

I love Bangalore Watch Company because I always learn something extremely interesting from their releases. Take, for example, this Silk Scarf. In 1936, 21-year-old Salra Thukral became the first Indian woman to acquire a commercial pilots license. Although aviation was not a popular career choice for women of India in the mid century, India’s economic liberalisation in the 1980s changed that. Thousands of women entered aviation in the industry, not just in piloting careers but also into ground-crew, and air-traffic roles. This is how India ended up with 15% of all commercial pilots in India being women, three times the global average. So it’s very cool of Bangalore Watch Company to pay homage to them.

The MACH 1 Silk Scarf uses the existing MACH1 platform which has some pretty awesome proportions. The stainless steel case measures 40mm wide, a very decent 10.8mm thick and a pretty great lug-to-lug of 46.5mm. The brushed surface of the watch is a great contrast to the fairly elegant shape and dial. Out back is a solid caseback which features an engraving of a silk scarf, which was a defining accessory for pilots in the early years.

The dial is both simple and attractive. The base has a slightly grained surface and a light pink color. The also pink flange on the outskirts holds a minute scale, while the dial has printed simple Arabic numerals. The hour and minute hands feature beige lume, while the seconds hand has an orange arrow tip. At 3 o’clock you’ll find the logo of the company while at 9 you’ll see the model name and a flag. And before you ask why this watch has an Irish flag on it — it’s not. It’s the way the Indian flag is displayed on fighter plane tails. At 6 o’clock is a date aperture with a black date disc.

Inside, a movement that won’t disappoint — it’s the Sellita SW200-1. This is a super common movement that’s easy to service and take care off pretty much anywhere in the world and comes with decent stats. It beats at 4Hz and has a 38 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a oil-pulled leather strap.

The Bangalore Watch Company MACH1 Silk Scarf is available now and priced at $1,050. See more on the Bangalore Watch Company website.

4/

Blok, The Maker Of The Best Kid’s Watch, Releases A 38mm Version For Big Kids

My daughter is just about to turn four years old in two weeks. And she’s becoming more and more interested in watches. She always asks what I have on and asks to see it up close. She loves great lume and enjoys playing with a bezel. I ask her again and again whether she wants a watch of her own, and she’s still saying no. Which, I guess, is a good thing, because the longer I can postpone giving her the obsession, the better for all of us. However, when she does say she wants one, I know exactly what we’re getting — a Block watch. Block is a fairly new brand, launched only last year, that makes spectacularly cool watches for kids. They are plastic, durable, with great colors, and have one of the best bezels I have ever seen — it’s segmented into 5, 10, 15, and 30-minute segments. Turn the start of a segment to where the minute hand is, and it lets the kid easily track these ubiquitous time segments. Tell your kid they only have 5 more minutes of TV time, and they can track it on their own. Brilliant idea!

But why let the kids have all the fun? That’s why Blok is releasing a Blok 38, made for larger kids. That’s cool. It features a steel core, surrounded by a plastic case that measures 38mm wide. OK, to be a bit more specific, it’s a nylon polymer which feels way more premium than what you would expect from regular plastic, and it’s more comfortable. On top is the same rotating bezel as the smaller version, with the same 5, 10, 15, and 30-minute increments. Except now, it’s fully lumed. Also, since you have a screw-down stainless steel crown and caseback, you get 100 meters of water resistance.

There are four color options for the case, which include different colored dials. There’s the black with yellow and grey accents; the white with grey and pink accents; the dark blue with white, pink, blue, and yellow accents; and the sensational fully lumed case and dial. All four dials feature the same layout with 12 boxes with numerals inside, skeletonized hour and minute hands, as well as an additional hand to track a second time zone. Yeah, this is also a GMT watch.

Powering the watch is a Swiss-made quartz Ronda GMT movement. It has a battery life of 6 years. The watches come on recycled MIL-SPEC nylon bands with steel hardware.

The new Blok 38 watches are available now and part of the regular collection. The price is set at $379 for the black and grey versions, and $429 for the glow and dark blue versions. So, when the kid wants her own, we are for sure getting a matching pair. See more on the Blok website.

5/

The Zenith Defy Extreme Jungle Chronograph Is The Wildest Watch You Will See This Week

Zenith has been making some pretty cool limited editions with their Defy Extreme model. The inspiration for these watches comes from hostile environments, and so far, they have released the Desert and Glacier editions. Both were pretty subtle takes on the Defy Extreme — at least as subtle as a Defy Extreme can get — but that’s behind them, I would say. Because the latest release in this line is the pretty wild Defy Extreme Jungle, which incorporates greens, tiger stripes, and precious stones.

The base is always the same, the regular Defy Extreme. The titanium case measures 45mm wide and 15.4mm thick, with a bunch of harsh angles, brushed finishes, and highly polished bevels. But this is where the similarities stop. The pusher protectors and the dodecagonal bezel that sits under the brushed flat round bezel are all made out of Tiger’s Eye stone, a variant of quartz with a lot of shades of brown. Water resistance is 200 meters.

The dial is, if at all possible, even wilder. It’s openworked and made up of many layers. At the centre is a green-tinted sapphire crystal for the three sub-dials and the power reserve indicator at noon. The three sub-dials feature orange and black striped frames with white markings. On top of it all are rhodium-plated indices and partially skeletonized hour and minute hands with beige lume. The central chronograph hand rotates around the dial once per second, making it easy to measure down to 1/100th of a second.

To make that possible, Zenith uses the El Primero 9004, which brings up the beat rate from 5Hz to 50Hz. Even with twin barrels, with such a fast beat rate, the 50-hour power reserve is pretty impressive. The watch comes with a titanium bracelet, a green embossed rubber strap with a titanium folding buckle, and a black Velcro strap.

The new Zenith Defy Extreme Jungle is a limited edition of 50 pieces and is available now. Yours, if you’re wild enough to pull one off, for €28,000. See more on the Zenith website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

1/

A review of the Yema x Alain Silberstein Marine Limited Edition

2/

Hands on with the 2023 Cartier Tank Américaine Large Models In Steel And Yellow Gold

3/

A review of the Ressence Type 9

⚙️Watch Worthy

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

The Jacques Bianchi JB300 Marks the Return of a Neo-Vintage French Military Diver

The brushed stainless steel case of the Jacques Bianchi JB300 has an elongated tonneau shape and is 42mm in diameter (based on the bezel) and 12.7mm in height. It’s not a small watch and a bit heavy on the wrist, but the lug-to-lug is only 45mm with a “barely there” 20mm lug width, so it feels somewhat compact. And by “barely there,” I mean you won’t be able to fit many NATO straps between the spring bars and case – it’s that tight. A slim one should fit, though, and a single-layer Perlon strap is included in the box.

Read the whole review on Monochrome Watches

⏲️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

• Meet Martha Wells, science fiction author extraordinaire and mother of Murderbot—a socially awkward softie with weaponized body armor. The Murderbot Diaries, a series that appeared in 2017 with a novella called All Systems Red, has attracted legions of fans worldwide, earning Wells plenty of Nebula and Hugo Award hardware since. For Wired, Meghan Herbst recounts Wells’ cat-strewn life, her start in writing, the lean years after the author made the leap into writing full time, and how much changed after author N.K. Jemisin blurbed a book from another Wells series, The Cloud Roads, declaring it the “rarest of fantasies: fresh and surprising, with a story that doesn’t go where ten thousand others have gone before.”

• Canonisation has long been a way for the Catholic church to shape its image. The Vatican is preparing to anoint its first millennial saint, but how does it decide who is worthy?

• Even if you know nothing about wrestling, grab some tissues first, because you’re going to have all kinds of feelings. Ettore “Big E” Ewen’s chronicle of his battles with major depression and how he found the success he ultimately did as a wrestler is open, warm, vulnerable, compulsively readable, and ultimately celebratory, but without diminishing the struggle.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

One of the best musicals I’ve seen on Broadway was The Producers, written by Mel Brooks, based on Brooks's 1967 film of the same name, and later remade as a movie with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. The premise of the movie/musical/movie is that with some creative accounting, you could actually earn more money with a flop on Broadway than a hit. This has often been said of movies as well. Morning Brew decided to test that theory and it’s super interesting.

-Vuk