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  • AP Launches Absolutely Stunning Ladies Royal Oak Concept With Very Unique Dial, Fears And Topper Pay Homage To NorCal Winters, Baltic Releases Black Field Watch, New From Spinnaker And Genus

AP Launches Absolutely Stunning Ladies Royal Oak Concept With Very Unique Dial, Fears And Topper Pay Homage To NorCal Winters, Baltic Releases Black Field Watch, New From Spinnaker And Genus

Women's watches have a bright future, can't wait to see what's next for AP under Rosta's leadership

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It's About Time
January 23, 2024

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. We’re always talking how we would like to see more women get into collecting watches, and yet, very little is done to do so. Even worse would be to try to bring more women in by force Judging by the first watch released under the new female CEO of AP, it looks like we’re on a good path to see more women in watches.

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In this issue:

  • Audemars Piguet’s New CEO’s First Project Is A Stunning Ladies Royal Oak Concept With A Very Unique Dial

  • Fears and Topper Jewelers’ LE Dedicated To Northern California Winters, Especially The Snow One, Is Beautiful

  • A Pitch Black Baltic Hermétique Night Mode Is The Third And Final LE To Join The Time+Tide 10th Birthday Celebration

  • Spinnaker Helps The Oceans With A New Croft Mid-Size With Dolphins On The Dial

  • Genus Is Another Brand That Joins The Dragon Watch Automata Extravaganza

Today’s reading time: 8 minutes and 20 seconds

👂What’s new

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One of the biggest moves in the watch industry last year was the departure of François-Henry Bennahmias from his long time position as CEO of Audemars Piguet. The CEO that brought even more pop culture connections into AP saw his final project off with the Cactus Jack collaboration with Travis Scott and now we get the first project headed by incoming CEO, Ilaria Rosta. And what a project that is. It’s the Royal Oak Concept Flying Tourbillon, made with fashion designer Tamara Ralph, an absolutely incredible watch with a very unique dial.

The watch comes in the familiar case that AP uses for the Royal Oak Concept models - it’s a 38.5mm wide and 11.9mm thick affair with the familiar octagonal bezel with exposed screws that draws back to the original RO design by Genta. But the rest of the case is much more modern, with strong facets and sharp lines. The case is made out of 18k hammered pink gold which has a frosted look. While I believe it’s (mostly) dumb to divide watches into men’s and women’s, the projects Bennahmias headed (Black Panther and Spider-Man, Cactus Jack) were distinctly male-oriented, so it makes sense to see the new CEO bringing her own sensibilities to create not just a watch that is distinctly female, but also incredibly good looking.

And responsible for these good looks is not just the case, but also the incredible dial. It’s made out of a series of off-set concentric circles that vary in shades of gold and brown forming layers, with an aperture in the lowest layer for the tourbillon at 6 o’clock. And the tourbillon itself is set with three rings of diamonds which sounds tacky but actually looks incredible.

Inside is the AP Calibre 2964, a manual winding movement that beats at 21,600 vph and has a 72 hour power reserve. You can peek through the back and you’ll see that the movement is also decorated decorated with a series of concentric circles. The watch comes on a light beige square scale alligator strap that fits into the integrated strap lugs.

The Royal Oak Concept Flying Tourbillon “Tamara Ralph” Limited Edition is limited to 100 pieces and the price is available on request. It’s a bold first watch from a new CEO, but judging by the looks, good things are coming for AP. See more on the Audemars Piguet website.

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Allow me to be completely frank and hones when I say I never really got into Fears watches. I completely understand the hype. They are beautiful pieces, a great thing for British watchmaking and they have a fantastic story behind them. They just never did anything for me. Maybe it was the colors, maybe it was the over-seriousness of the watches, I’m not sure. However… I just fell in love. Fears has teamed up with California based Topper Jewelers for a collection of four watches with an incredible fresh and modern look.

All four of the watches come in the same 40mm wide, 40mm tall, 11.06mm thick, stainless steel cushion-shaped case that Fears uses for their Brunswick watch. This has become one of the most recognizable Fears cases, and with prominent lugs and a large crown it almost looks like a Panerai. Water resistance is rated to 150 meters, on top is a sapphire crystal and it has a combination of brushed an polished surfaces.

Where these Fears watches get a completely new look is with the dials. All four are dedicated to natural beauty of Northern California winters and, you guessed it, that’s why you get a California dial - Roman numerals on the top part of the dial and Arabic on the bottom. All the indices are diamond polished and hand-applied, giving the dial incredible depth. And each of the four shows expert mastery of colors.

First up is the colorway called Winter lake, a deep blue that’s a tribute to Lake Tahoe in winter, when the lake is dark and brooding, while the numerals are white and painted on. Then there’s Whiteout. The dial has a stamped guilloche texture and white lacquer coating, while orange accents represent the warning signs dotted across California highways and ski slopes. Pacific has a teal dial which reflects the color of the Pacific Ocean during a winter storm, paired with gold accents that are inspired by the pyrite deposits found on Half Moon Bay beaches. And lastly, my favorite - Snowed In. It’s a white and green gradient dial representing snow falling on pine trees. The gradient effect is created with small dots that shift in size and frequency as they get closer to the dial’s center. While it looks a bit messy in the head on photo, the applied indices make it easily legible with a very different dial.

Inside is the familiar La Joux-Perret G101 automatic movement, an alternative to the ubiquitous but increasingly hard to source ETA 2824. It bets at 4 Hz and delivers a 68 hour power reserve. Each watch comes on a different strap - the Winter Lake gets a blue nubuck buffalo leather with contrasting white stitching, the Whiteout an orange textile fabric with contrasting white stitching, the Pacific a white sailcloth with contrasting dark green stitching and the Snowed In gets a dark brown calf leather with tonal stitching.

The Fears x Topper Edition Series II: Tribute to Northern California can be purchased only from Topper Jewelers, either in their store or on the website and each version is limited to just 25 pieces. Each watch will set you back $3,900. See more on the Topper Jewelers website.

3/

Over the past several days, the Australian-based watch publication Time+Tide has been celebrating their 10th anniversary with a number of limited edition watches. First they showed the Furlan Marri inspired by the brown of the Australian outback, then came the April-fools-joke-turned-real-watch, the Studio Underd0g Pizza watch. Now, the triligy of celebration watches ic concluding with the Baltic x Time+Tide Hermétique Night Mode, a blacked out version of the fan favorite Hermétique field watch model from Baltic.

The Hermétique Night Mode comes in the same stainless steel case as the rest of the Hermétique collection, meaning it’s 37mm wide and 10.8mm thick, with 150 metres of water resistance. On op is the double-domed sapphire which gives it a very retro rook. However, this one, for the first time, comes with a matte black PVD coating. While black watches are a very personal preference, it’s nice to see it on the Hermétique.

The dial is equally as dark as the case. Which means it’s matte black. The indices are made of 0.5mm blocks of C3 X1 Super-LumiNova, the brightest grade of Super-LumiNova, which is yellowish in daylight and glows green in the dark. You still get the railway minute track on the perimeter, but that isn’t lumed. Unlike the syringe hour and minute hands are, as well as its lollipop seconds hand which get the same lume treatment, green on the hands and blue on the seonds hand.

Inside is the Miyota calibre 9039, one of their premium calibres that has a 4Hz beat rate, automatic winding and a 42-hour power reserve. The watch comes on either a black or khaki FKM Tropic-style rubber strap.

The Baltic x Time+Tide Hermétique Night Mode will be exclusively available to purchase in the Time+Tide Discovery Studio in Melbourne, with a one-off chance to order one if you live outside of Australia. Starting on Friday the 26th of January at 7:00 am Melbourne time, for 24 hours, you will be able to order the Night Mode. Deliveries are expected in April and the watch is priced at €700. See more on the Time+Tide website or register your interest here.

4/

For years, Spinnaker seems to have been overlooked in the online watch community. While they make tough-looking divers with some great designs, and they do have their loyal fans, people aren’t raving about them all the time. Well, that changed last year when they collaborated with watch customizer seconde/seconde/ on the Halloween-themed 50 Phantoms which featured, you guessed it, 50 phantoms on the dial. People went crazy for that watch so much it crashed their website and broke the ordering system, forcing them to release more to make up for the blunder. Now, Spinnaker is continuing with collaborations that have a fantastic design - this time we’re getting a trio of Croft Mid-Size Dolphin Project Limited Edition.

The Croft Mid-Size means you get a chunky watch that measures 40mm wide and 14mm thick. For such a big piece that plays on the diving theme, it doesn’t exactly meet all the requirements one might have from a diver. Depth rating is set at only 150 meters and it has a unidirectional rotating bezel. The bezel has an insert in either a steel or dark blue color, depending on the colorway.

There are three colorways - Ocean Blue, Ocean Black and Ocean Turquoise and they all have 42 pairs of dolphins on the dial, all lumed, just like the phantoms on the Haloween watch. They look amazing. The link to the dolphins is simple, as Spinnaker is supporting the Dolphin Project, one of the leading non-profit dolphin conservation and welfare organisations, established in 1970. The dial follows a fairly typical dive watch layout with large lumed hour markers. There’s a date window at 3 o’clock.

Inside is the well known, robust, easily servicable, but not particlarly accurate Seiko NH35. It comes with 41 hour of power reserve, which is also due for a bump up. You don’t get to see this not particularly attractive movement because it has a solid caseback with the Dolphin Project logo. The watches come on a steel bracelet and additional rPET strap in red, blue or turquoise depending on the colourway.

Each of the Croft Mid-Size Dolphin Project Limited Edition colorways is limited to 600 pieces and price is set at $425. See more on the Spinnaker website.

5/

After two full weeks of watch brands releasing dragon-themed watches in honor of the Lunar New Year, yesterday I showed you something completely different - Parmigiani released an automata of a dragon that chases a pearl that just happens to also house a watch. Now, another brand is going down the automat route - Genus. Genus was founded in 2019, so it’s quite young, but has already made a name for itself with wildly creative and kinetic time displays. The Genus Dragon follows this tradition fully.

The Genus Dragon is based on the Genus GNS which has wowed people since it’s introduction, with it’s satellite hour markers placed on the periphery and a mechanical centipede that circles the two displays of the tens of minutes in the centre of the dial. For the Dragon, Genus has changed the centipede into a sculpted dragon which points it’s head to the approximate ten-minute reading. To create the dragon, Genus employed the services of engineers, goldsmiths, sculptors, engravers and watchmakers and they proudly display it under a heavily domed sapphire crystal. The dragon is made up of eleven segments, all made out of 18k gold.

The automata comes in a 43mm wide case that’s 18.8mm thick and you get a choice of materials - white gold, rose gold, titanium or Damascus titanium. The rose gold model can had with either red or green accents, the white gold has dark blue or red hour markers while the Damascus titanium has green details.

Powering this ultra-complex watch is the proprietary calibre 160W-1.2, a hand-wound movement which relies on two models, one for energy storage and transmission and the second for distribution and regulation. It beats at 18,000 vph and has a 50 hour power reserve. Strap are equally as customizable, rangeing from rubber to alligator.

While the Genus Dragon is not officially limited, I assume it will be limited by production possibility. Price is just as high as you would expect - CHF 174,400 for the white or rose gold models, CHF 171,000 for the Damascus titanium and CHF 140,650 on the regular grade 5 titanium. See more on the Genus website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

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⚙️Watch Worthy

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

The Sarmizegetusa Regia calendar influenced the style of the dial. It’s also what inspired the date window at 12 o’clock. It blends in nicely with a black date disc with white printing. But a date at 12 o’clock will always get quite a few comments, and I expect nothing different this time. Having a date window there will lead to the hands covering the date change at midnight. However, it fits the concept inspired by the Sarmizegetusa Regia calendar, and therefore, it is an example of form over function. Thankfully, it didn’t bother me at all when wearing the watch.

⏲️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

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

The Internet never ceases to amaze and surprise. Like, for example, the discovery I made today. Shell, the oil company, has maintained a Historic Film Archive since 1934 that covers a rich mix of topics from technology, science and engineering to craftsmanship, motorsport and travelogue. No, really, head on over to YouTube, you won’t believe some of the amazing videos they have there. Here’s an amazing video on air travel in the 1950s.

💵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 Ōtsuka 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