Timex Remakes An Ana-Digi From 1982; Echo/Neutra's 1956 Chrono With A Crispy White Dial; Chronoswiss Releases Its Sportiest Watch; ArtyA Uses Mirrors; Louis Vuitton And Kari Voutilainen Team Up

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. As we’re getting closer to Watches & Wonders, there are less and less affordable watches being released because they know it will be hard to compete with the hype of the show. What we do see more is expensive watches. And there are plenty of those in the coming days. So just bear with me.

In this issue:

• Timex Fully Embraces It’s Retro Charm With A Remake Of A Simple Ana-Digi From 1982

• Echo/Neutra Gives A Crispy White Dial To The 1956 Chronograph

• Chronoswiss Releases Its Sportiest Watch To Date, The Pulse One In Sand Or Blue

• ArtyA Introduces The Purity Wavy HMS Mirror In A Very Curvy Titanium Case

• Louis Vuitton And Kari Voutilainen Release The LVKV-02 GMR 6

👂What’s new

1/

Timex Fully Embraces It’s Retro Charm With A Remake Of A Simple Ana-Digi From 1982

The huge rise we’ve seen from Timex in the past few years has been based on one of two approaches. First, create new watches with bold designs, often inspired by classic vintage designs, and offer them at great prices. Second, just reach back into their immense catalogue of watches and recreate them for modern times. And this is exactly what their new release, the Q Timex 1982 Ana-Digi Reissue, is. A recreation of a simple analog-digital watch. And you know how much I love an ana-digi.

This is as 1980s as we can get. The watch remains the same size as the original, which means it’s absolutely tiny at 33mm wide and 9mm thick. 33 might sound too small, but the fact that it’s a square watch makes it look not as small as you might imagine. You can get it two case colors — a more subdued silver and a very groovy gold. Always go for the fake gold if you’re going 1980s.

The silver version gets a black dial, while the gold gets a slightly lighter shade of gold on the dial, making it the perfect companion to your white suit and rolled up currency. Both have the same setup — there’s a slightly octagonal analogue display at the bottom part of the dial with a digital display right above it. The digital display shows you the time, but also a number of other functions, including a calendar, timer, and alarm.

The new Timex Q 1982 Ana-Digi Reissue is available now, doesn’t seem to be limited and is priced at $179. See more on the Timex website.

2/

Echo/Neutra Gives A Crispy White Dial To The 1956 Chronograph

For a couple of years now, the Italian independent brand echo/neutra has been making pretty great sports watches inspired by the Dolomite mountain range. Then late last year, they kind of broke the sports-watch streak and broke the internet along the way, with the release of the Rivanera, a radically angular small dress watch that was an instant hit. I liked it, but I’m also glad that echo/neutra is moving back to the sports watches it’s so good at making. Their latest release is an update to the 1956 Chronograph, now with a crisp white dial.

The Cortina 1956 Chronograph is a large watch — it measures 40mm wide and 14.1mm thick — but it has a short lug-to-lug measurement of 46mm. It’s very wearable and sits great on a wrist. Especially for a chronograph. The finishing on the case is a combination of satin and polished, and on top is a fixed bezel with a sapphire insert that has a telemeter scale on it. Curiously, this is the second day in a row that we get a classic chronograph with a telemeter scale. Also on top is an ultra domed sapphire crystal which looks very much like a vintage crystal. Interestingly, the crown doesn’t screw down, nor do the pushers, but you still get 100 meters of water resistance, which is always a welcomed sight on chronographs.

The dial has a bi-compax setup with a 30 minute counted on the 3 o’clock counter and a running seconds at 9 o’clock. While previous versions included black, blue and salmon colors, I think I like this one the most, with its stark white base and black markings. The hands are all black with white lume tips. The central chronograph hand is also white, but to stand out from the background it has red stripes on the tip. At 6 o’clock is a red 1956 stamp that’s characteristic for the collection.

Inside, a bit of a surprise. There’s no automatic here. Instead, it’s the Sellita SW510M manual-winding movement. It comes in the elabore grade, beats at 4Hz and has a 58 hour power reserve. The watch comes standard with a tropic-style rubber strap and a choice of a secondary strap — a black leather racing-style strap, a black water buffalo strap or a stainless steel bracelet.

The new echo/neutra 1956 White Chronograph is available now as part of the regular collection. Price is set at €1,690, which bumps up to €1,740 if you opt for the stainless steel bracelet. See more on the echo/neutra website.

3/

Chronoswiss Releases Its Sportiest Watch To Date, The Pulse One In Sand Or Blue

I’ve written about Chronoswiss watches many, many times. And every single time I mention them, people go crazy for them. Which makes perfect sense because they have wild designs, inspired by fire and ice and everything in between. They are best known for their regulator display setups, intricate patterns and bright colors. So their latest release comes as a bit of a surprise. Not only does it not have the wild look of other models, the new Pulse One comes in the ever-popular integrated bracelet sports watch format. But don’t worry, there’s still Chronoswiss strangeness here with great colors and a regulator setup.

The titanium case of the new Pulse One measures 41mm wide, 12.75mm thick and despite its integrated bracelet has a slightly longer lug to lug than expected at 47mm. The length comes from the fact that it has an integrated link instead of traditional lugs. There are sapphire crystals on top and bottom, with the top one surrounded by a really great looking notched bezel. The watch keeps the Chronoswiss signature onion crown, but now it’s protected. The case has a sandblasted satin finish. It’s a sports watch, so 100 meters of water resistance is expected.

There are two versions of the Chronoswiss Pulse One at launch. First, there’s the Pulse One Sand with a sandblasted galvanic 4N gold base and blued hands and CVD-coated indices; and then there’s the Pulse One Blue with a CVD-coated base and rhodium-plated hands and markers. It’s still a regulator display — a central minute hand, a raised hour counter at 12 o’clock and a retrograde seconds counter at 6 o’clock, jumping back every 30 seconds. They both have a combination of brushed and sandblasted surfaces, including on the angled minute flange.

Inside, you’ll find the manufacture calibre C. 6001. Built on a base from La Joux-Perret, it gets an in-house module for the regulator display. It beats at 4Hz and has a 55 hour power reserve. It’s decorated with ruthenium-plated bridges and plates, bevelled angles and radiating Geneva stripes. The watch comes on a grade 5 titanium integrated bracelet with single links and a concealed butterfly clasp.

The new Chronoswiss Pulse One is limited to 100 pieces per colorway and priced at €12,900. See more on the Chronoswiss website.

4/

ArtyA Introduces The Purity Wavy HMS Mirror In A Very Curvy Titanium Case

The independent watch brand ArtyA headed by Yvan Arpa is perhaps best known for their incredible use of sapphire crystals to make watch cases. They are stunning creations, especially those cases that change color. But Arpa knows how to use other materials as well. That’s pretty evident in their latest release, the Purity Wavy HMS Mirror that comes in a beautifully curved titanium case.

ArtyA points out that this very curvy case was designed by Jérémie Arpa, Yvan Arpa’s son. It measures 40mm wide and 13mm thick. The chase has a presence and looks large, but likely isn’t on wrist, thanks to the continuous curving of material on all sides. The finish is a very fine matte blasted surface, with a transparent protective DLC coating. It also has a mirror-polished bevel down the side of the case and a slightly sunken crown.

There’s no dial here at all. Instead, you get a mirrored caseback that creates a huge opening in the centre of the watch where they put the entire movement on display. It’s a manually wound movement made by Telos with two parallel barrels placed around the crown and a suspended 4Hz escapement. The escapement is surrounded by a bridge composed of three arced and hand-bevelled tiers on the left. The two barrels give you 73 hours of power reserve. On top of the movement, you’ll find sword-shaped central hands which point to a minute and hour scale that’s laser-engraved on the underside of the sapphire crystal. The watch can be had on either an alligator or nubuck leather strap.

The new ArtyA Purity Wavy HMS Mirror is limited to 99 pieces and priced at €27,900, without taxes. See more on the ArtyA website.

5/

Louis Vuitton And Kari Voutilainen Release The LVKV-02 GMR 6

Louis Vuitton is dead set on leaving a lasting mark in the world of independent watchmaking. Sure, they are not a small indie manufacture. But their Louis Vuitton Watch Prize for Independent Creatives, in combination with their collaboration last year with Rexhep Rexhepi, founder of Atelier Akrivia, shows they are in for the long haul. What I missed in the Akrivia collaboration is that that was the first limited edition in a series of five that LV intends to do with indie watchmakers. Well, now, we get the secodn watch in the series, the LVKV-02 GMR 6, featuring a tantalum and platinum case, a very trick GMT movement, miniature-painted enameling and hand guilloché, all done in collaboration with Kari Voutilainen.

There are a lot of details to this watch, so let’s get started with the usual, the case. It’s based on the Escale collection, measuring 40.5mm wide and 12.54mm thick. The bezel, lugs (which are designed to look like the corner brackets on LV travel trunks), back and octagonal crown are rendered in polished 950 platinum, while the midcase is done in satin brushed dark grey tantalum. LV points out that the entire case is finished by hand. The caseback has a sapphire crystal and is engraved with “Louis cruises with Kari” to mark the collaboration. Water resistance is an expectedly low 30 meters.

The dial is where the collaboration between the two watchmaking powerhouses is the most evident. On the periphery is a brushed dark grey ring with minute markers, followed by the hour chapter ring adorned with miniature paintings done by Marysa Bossy, an artisan of La Fabrique des Arts. The diamond pattern is done by using 28 different colours, all done by hand, to mimic stained-glass windows. On that ring you have white gold Roman numerals. The center of the dial is classic Voutilainen — a solid gold base is hand-guilloché by Kari’s workshop with an intricate pattern. The Voutilainen workshop also makes the sun and moon disc that serves as a day-and-night indicator on the second time zone sub-dial. And at 12 is a retrograde power reserve indicator. The hands are a story for themselves. They look like modernized Breguet hands, done in white gold and blued steel. There’s a bunch of details here that I can’t fit in, but I need to mention the very cool combination of the classic LV logo with the Voutilainen name for the new logo of the watch.

Inside, it’s all about Voutilainen. The Calibre GMR 6 is based on a GMT hand-wound movement developed by Voutilainen. It’s a very cool movement that uses two direct-impulse escapement wheels for the two time zones. The GMT disc rotates in 24 hours and is designed to be set to home time, while the main hour hand indicates the local time. The latter can be adjusted by one-hour increments by pressing the crown, making it a true traveller’s GMT. The movement beats at 2.5Hz and has a 65 hour of power reserve. It’s finished with Geneva stripes and perlage on the main plate, large anglages done by hand, a rounded black polished balance bridge and everything that goes along with movements of this calibre. The watch comes with two straps, a grey fabric strap and an anthracite alligator strap, closed by a platinum pin buckle.

The Louis Vuitton x Kari Voutilainen LVKV-02 GMR 6 is limited to just five pieces and priced at a pretty spectacular €550,000. See more on the Louis Vuitton website.

⏲️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

• This is an older article, but really interesting. Before Timothy Leary and the Beatles, LSD was largely unknown and unregulated. But in the 1950s, as many as 100 Hollywood luminaries—Cary Grant and Esther Williams among them—began taking the drug as part of psychotherapy. With LSD research beginning a comeback, the authors recount how two Beverly Hills doctors promoted a new “wonder drug,” at $100 a session, profoundly altering the lives of their glamorous patients. Best of all, the article is co-authored by Judy Balaban, an actress who was one of the LSD patients.

• After thousands of rare Chilean cacti were found in the house of an Italian collector, a years-long trial slowly unravelled how they got there – and is setting a precedent for dealing with crimes of this kind.

• The Christian nationalist movement has undertaken a vast worldwide expansion. I even see their influence here in Croatia, a tiny country with barely 4 million people. However, their next big push seems to be in the U.K. 

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

We’ve all known this for decades, but it’s always nice to see visual evidence that Quentin Tarantino has never had an original thought in his life.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk