It’s Friday and am I weird for liking the Atowak? I’m pretty sure I am.
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What’s new
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Bremont Releases Trio Of New Supermarine GMT Divers With Silky Smooth Colors
The British watch brand Bremont is a curious one. They don’t release watches very often, they don’t get as much press as some other brands and yet they have a rabid following that has allowed them to grow from an ambitious microbrand in 2002 to a British powerhouse in 2023 with a huge new manufacturing facility and a clearly defined lineup. In their quest to become an even bigger player in the market, Bremont has hired Davide Cerrato, the legend behind the reboot of Tudor, as CEO. And while it’s still too early to see the results of his work, Bremont has introduced the first major update to one of their lines since Cerrato was hired - the new Supermarine S302 GMT.
Bremont started off making pilot’s watches, which makes sense since the founders and brothers Nick & Giles English are obsessed with planes. IN the late 90s they were flying across France in their 1930’s biplane when they were forced to make an emergency landing due to a rough running engine. They were taken in by a friendly farmer whose field they had landed in and they promised that his warm hospitality would never be forgotten. Well, they didn’t forget it, as they named their company after Antoine Bremont, the farmer. However, despite specialising in pilot’s watches at the start, they have branched into field, diving and dressy watches.
The Supermarine Collection is their take on a robust diver and the newly updated S302 looks like fresh take on the classic Bremont look. It comes in a familiar 40mm stainless steel case that, with the addition of a screw down crown, offers 300 meters of water resistance. The case has beveled polishing and brushed finishing which reflects the tool watch nature of the watch. The case is topped off with an anti-reflective sapphire crystal, as well as a Bi-Directional 24-hour bezel. The inserts are either brushed aluminium or Ceramic, depending on which version you get.
And there’s three versions to choose from - a steel edition, a full DLC variation, and a two-tone DLC and steel model. The steel version comes with a day/night green and blue aluminum bezel insert, along with a deep navy dial with a contrasting GMT arrow that’s painted orange. The two DLC models opt for a black ceramic bezel insert with contrasting cream numerals. The full DLC version comes with a black dial that matches exactly the treatment on the case with creamy markings on the dial. The two-tone is my absolute favorite with a steel case and a black dial/bezel combo. All three dials are completely matte, making them look silky smooth, and feature just the simplest of markings with everything being slathered in SuperLuminova.
Inside all three versions is the Bremont caliber BE-93-2AV. It’s a slight update from the previous BE-93-2AE which is based on the ETA 2892-A2. The movement beats at 4Hz and power reserve has been updated from 38 hours to 50. Bremont also says that the movement will be chronometer rated to ISO 3159 standard. The entire series comes on a range of strap options. You can get the watches on FKM rubber and aged leather straps, that are colour matched to each design or a steel bracelet.
The new Bremont Supermarine GMT S302 will be available this fall, with the two-tone version limited to 400 pieces and the other options to come as regular production models. Pricing will start at $3,750 on the strap and go all the way up to $4,200 on the steel bracelet. See more on the Bremont website.
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Nomos Shrinks Down The Metro To 33mm And Gives It Three Delightful Dials
Some ten years ago, the teutonic and architectural German watch brand Nomos released a slightly different watch, the Nomos Metro. It was their homage to the city and it became an instant cult icon, with a power reserve indicator, large date display, details in mint green and red and skyscraper-shaped hands. Designed by Mark Braun, it won a number of design awards and now Braun is back to redo the icon. He leaves the original behind and renders the same feel of the Metro but now in a much smaller 33mm package that is perfect for women and people with smaller wrists who often struggle to find something that will suit them.
The watch very much resembles it’s larger cousin, but is now shrunk down to much smaller proportions. The stainless steel case measures 33mm wide, 7.7mm thick and has a lug-to-lug of just 40mm. The case has thin wired lugs and it’s topped off with a double curved sapphire crystal glass. The crown at 3 o’clock does not screw down so you get 30 meters of water resistance.
The watches come in three versions - silver, muted red or sage green. Each of the colors represents an aspect of the big city, this time New York. The silver represents the gleaming skyscrapers, the muted red the red brick buildings of Brooklyn, while the sage green represents the Statue of Liberty. Like all Nomos watches, the colors look amazing. As for the rest of the dials, it had to lose some of the details of the larger model. Gone is the date aperture, but the small seconds display remains. While the silver dialed version gets silver hands, the red version has the seconds hand and minute markers in pink while the sage delivers them then in yellow.
Inside the watch is brand’s well-known in-house Alpha manual winding movement. It has 17 jewels and a power reserve of up to 43 hours and like most other models, you can get it with either a solid or crystal caseback. The watches come on a grey suede strap.
The Nomos Glashütte Metro 33 is part of the permanent collection and will cost you €1,820 for the solid caseback version or €2,040 with the sapphire crystal caseback. See more on the Nomos website.
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The Limited Edition ATOWAK Spaceship Is China’s Version Of An Urwerk For Less Money Than An Oris
The age of looking down at Chinese watches is way behind us. Not only are brands like CIGA design, Atelier Wen and Celadon HH making high-end watches at great prices, but they’re also manufacturing the majority of Swiss Made-branded watches with a few clever workarounds to be considered Swiss. So, when I tell you that ATOWAK, the Chinese watch brand specialising in interesting movement complications, is coming out with a space-themed wandering hour piece called the Spaceship.
It’s hard to describe the look of the Spaceship, but the basics are as follows: it’s made out of stainless steel with a width of 42.5mm, a substantial lug-to-lug of 53mm and a chunky 16mm thickness. With the large lug-to-lug it has a bit of s teardrop shape, with angular lugs on top and bottom and a crown at 12 o’clock. The brand itself claims that each Spaceship example requires a 60-step case finishing process, and given the intricacy on display, it’s easy to see how. The watch comes in five variations - Mars Red with a black DLC case and red details, Azure Silver with a steel case and blue details, Stardust Grey with a dark silver case and yellow details, Nebula Silver with a steel case and light green details and Abyssal Blue with a blue coated case and blue details on the dial.
Whereas other watches would have their dials as the centrepiece of the watch, the Spaceship’s most interesting quality just might be it’s intricate sapphire crystal which matches the curves, flares and angles of the case. It looks insanely expensive to make. It also gives you an amazing look at the dial (or dials?). ATOWAK has always been known for their weird displays of time, and this is no exception. It has a set of rotating hours disks, while the minutes are shown on a bi-level scale where 6 o’clock would usually be found.
It’s al bold and exotic, but despite it’s futuristic look, inside the watch is a modified variant of the familiar Miyota 9039 automatic movement, which allows the ATOWAK to keep the cost low. The base movement beats at 28,800vph and has a power reserve of 38 hours. However, it’s then overlaid with an in-house wandering hours module. It comes on a quick-release FKM rubber deployant strap in a range of colors, depending which version you get.
The ATOWAK SPACESHIP will launch on ATOWAK’s official website on October 24th, 11 AM EDT with a limited 300 pieces. Retail price for the ATOWAK Spaceship is $1,899, but pre-order buyers will have the option to purchase a $50 coupon to save $500 off the final purchase price, brining the price to $1,449, which is pretty incredible. If you’re in a market for such a crazy watch. See more on the ATOWAK website.
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Atelier Holgur Introduces The Frømand Edition Fumée
Just a year ago, the Singapore-based Atelier Holgur released their first watch. It was something so very different than what you would expect from an upstart microbrand. It was a very modern, beautiful and quite pricy diver they called the Frømand. Now, a year later, they are releasing an update to the Frømand with the new limited-edition Frømand Edition Fumée with two elegant gradient dials.
Not much has changed with the case from the original. You get a 40mm wide and 13.5mm thick Grade 5 titanium case. It’s very angular with a mix of micro-blasted and polished surfaces and no classical lugs but rather integrated strap bars. The bars have a shroud over them, making it look like the bracelet is integrated into the case. The crystal is surrounded with a black DLC bezel.
The major change for the two new models comes on the dials, which can be bought in green and a red fumé. Both get the most intense color in the centre, transitioning to black around the edges. Along with the colors, the dials also get a new sunburst effect instead of the circular graining pattern the regular black version came with. The sword-style hands and indices remain the same, and both are treated with a lot of Super-LumiNova.
Inside the watches is the same Schwarz-Etienne ASE 200 caliber that was used in the 2022 model. It beats at 21,600vph, has a power reserve of 86 hours and is skeletonized. It’s wound by a micro-rotor and has a micro-blasted finish with hand-polished beveled edges. The watches come with two straps each, made out of recycled ocean plastic - one is a two-piece strap fitted with a hook-and-loop closure, while the other is a pass-through loop strap with hook-and-loop closure and edges matching the dial color.
The Atelier Holgur Frømand Edition Fumée is priced at CHF 11,500, which is about CHF 1,000 more than the regular version and a hell of a lot of money. However, there’s no doubt they will sell out of the entire edition since only eight pieces of each color will be made. See more on the Atelier Holgur website.
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Breguet Equips Their Sporty Marine Watch With A Tourbillon
OK, that title might be a tiny bit of an exaggeration. Breguet doesn’t really have a real sports watch. A couple of their collections border a bit on being wearable on a yacht, which I guess is a sport? One of these collections is the Marine, and Breguet is now giving this collection the mechanism their founder A. L. Breguet is most famous for inventing - the tourbillon. This is the Breguet Marine Tourbillon 5577.
It isn’t the first time a tourbillon is housed in the current Breguet Marine collection but the new Breguet Marine Tourbillon 5577 gets the new ultra-thin in-house automatic calibre with a peripheral rotor making the entire package very slim. In fact, the slimmest it’s ever been with a thickness of 9.3mm, which is very nice. You can get it in either a 18k pink gold or 950 platinum case that measures 42.5mm wide and has a screw down crown that gives you 100 meters of water resistance. See? Sporty!
The dial looses the guilloché pattern of previous versions, but the solid gold dial now gets a classic sunray-brushed pattern and an either brown or blue color applied to it. Hour markers and hands are made out of gold with lume (again, sporty!). The numerals are very modern Roman versions that have caused some controversy that are also lume filled. The dial has a cutout at 5 o’clock for the tourbillon.
Inside is the in-house calibre 581, an ultra-thin movement with 330 components which is just 3mm thick. To do this, Breguet uses a peripheral rotor. The back reveals a nautical-inspired decoration with a straight-ribbed motif reminiscent of boat decks with a compass rose on the barrel drum. The watches can be bought on a rubber strap or on an alligator leather straps.
Pricing for the Breguet Marine Tourbillon 5577, which will be part of the regular collection is, as you would expect, very high. €161,300 for the rose gold and €177,600 for the platinum version. See more on the Breguet website.
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On hand - a selection of reviews
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Hands-On With The Vibrant New Titoni Impetus Ceram-Tech Zr02
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A review of the Carl F. Bucherer Manero Minute Repeater Symphony
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Watch Worthy - A look at an offbeat, less known watch you might actually like
Even though the case has quite an original design, it’s the dial that won me over on this one. The Hydrium Seconde/Seconde/ before it, as well as the Hydrium x Blink already showcased Isotope’s creative and colourful side, but this one takes it in a new direction. Out is the whimsical approach, and in comes a more tool-like dial. The coarsely-grained matte black dial shows a mix of beige Roman and Arabic numerals, resulting in a so-called California dial (hence the name). The indices are raised, and finished with Super-LumiNova, as are the i-shaped hour and minute hands. The central seconds hand has a small plot of lume on its tip. The only other break in the dial’s muted colour scheme is the white minute track on the outer edge, the red *HydriumCA print, the white print for the logo, the fact it’s automatic and the watch’s water-resistance of 1,000 feet or 300 meters. Read the whole review on Monochrome Watches.
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One of the reasons why i really like the Lorier from yesterday’s edition is the dive bezel and 24-hour scale on the rehaut. Very cool setup