Atelier Wen Releases Drop Dead Gorgeous Ancenstra; Bremont Brings Back Iconic MB Meteor Orange Barrel; Favre Leuba Adds Royal Purple To Chief Date; Hautlence's Helix Series 1 With Wild Tourbillon

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. As you might have noticed, there was no newsletter yesterday. We’re entering the weeks when releases kind of slow down, so I might have to cut back on the issues. But don’t worry, whenever there’s something interesting, I’ll be here to report.

In this issue

• Atelier Wen Releases Drop Dead Gorgeous Dragon-Inspired Ancenstra

• Bremont Brings Back Its Iconic Altitude MB Meteor Orange Barrel

• Favre Leuba Adds Royal Purple To Its Handsome Chief Date Collection

• Hautlence Introduces The Helix Series 1 With Central Cylindrical Tourbillon And Double Retrograde Display

👂What’s new

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Atelier Wen Releases Drop Dead Gorgeous Dragon-Inspired Ancenstra

One of the worst things about going to a show like Watches and Wonders is that you get to see watches that won’t come out for months. Very often, these are beautiful watches that you just want to throw on your wrist and snap a few pictures to at least send around to you watch-collecting-degenerate friends. But you can’t. Until you can. One of the most stunning watches I couldn’t tell you about is now officially available and it comes from Atelier Wen. It’s an unusual story, that of Atelier Wen. It is a passion project of two French men who saw that Chinese watchmaking is capable of more than just mass producing movements in a range of price points. Robin Tallendier and Wilfried Buiron looked deeper and saw craftsmanship that they wanted to show to the world. After a great run with the Perception line, time has come for Atelier Wen to give us something new. And this is it, the new Atelier Wen Ancestra, or Jiao in traditional Chinese.

The Ancestra takes its name quite seriously, as it is dripping in Chinese tradition, with homages to French watchmaking. Inspiration for the entire watch comes from the Hongshan Jade Dragon, the very first depiction of a dragon ever recorded, but there are dozens of easter eggs all over this watch and I’ll try to catch as many as possible. While the Perception had a very modern and sharp integrated bracelet design, the Ancestra is the exact opposite — softer and more classic. The case is made out of 904L stainless steel and measures 38mm wide, 11.3mm thick and a comfortable 46mm lug-to-lug. I tried the watch on in Geneva and it wears like a dream. The sculpted lugs are screwed into the case and Atelier Wen points out that the case is very much shaped after the Hongshan dragon. The case has a mixed of brushed surfaces and beautiful polished bevels and sapphire crystals on top and bottom, with the one on top being double domed. The crown screws down and you get 100 meters of water resistance.

But wait till you see the dial. It’s surely the prettiest dial I’ve seen at Watches and Wonders and I would bet it’s among the best looking this year. Photographs just don’t do it justice because they can’t seem to catch how good the hammered texture looks. To make this even more impressive, the surface of the dial is then covered with Grand Feu enamel that has a gradient from an almost silver in the centre to a dark blue at the edges. It’s wildly beautiful up close. Around the perimeter of the dial is a familiar minute track inspired by traditional Chinese artwork. The hour markers are a combination of baguette-cut diamonds on the even hours and Chinese calligraphy symbols on the odd ones. There also seems to be an alternate variant that uses Arabic numerals inspired by bamboo paintings instead of the Chinese calligraphy, but I would say go all out on the calligraphy.

Inside, there’s a huge change. While previous Atelier Wen watches prided themselves on using Chinese movement, for the Ancestra they turned to the French movement maker Pequignet. The automatic movement is called the Calibre EPM03 and it’s customized for Atelier Wen. The movement beats at 4Hz, has a 65 hour power reserve and is wound by a 5N rose gold-plated rotor using the efficient Pellaton winding system. The movement is regulated to an accuracy of +/-2 seconds per day, which is fantastic. It’s also quite beautiful. Not just for its mirror-polished ratchet wheel and balance bridge, but also a stunning three-quarter bridge that has a micro-etching of a Chinese manuscript called Questions to Heaven. I usually dislike text etchings on watches, but this looks incredible. The watch comes on a taupe full-grain leather strap with an Epsom upper and Zermatt lining, tapering from 20mm to 16mm. The strap is closed with a steel buckle with hand-applied, mirror-polished bevels and fine brushing.

The new Atelier Wen Ancestra is available for pre-order now. It’s not limited in number, but rather in its order window. All watches ordered in the next 7 days will be delivered in the second quarter of next years. With an incredible hand-made dial, diamonds and a much better movement, you know that the Ancestra will come with a higher price — $5,850, without tax. That’s a lot of money, but having seen it, I would say it’s worth it.

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Bremont Brings Back Its Iconic Altitude MB Meteor Orange Barrel

A year and some months ago, the iconic British watch brand Bremont underwent quite the transformation. Not only did they bring in a superstar CEO in Davide Cerrato, fueled by private equity investments from one of the richest people in the world, they also unveiled a brand new logo and completely new lineup of watches. Gone were the watches inspired by British heritage and military, replaced by a collection that was perceived as… generic. It was, with little doubt, quite the large misstep. One that threatened the future of the brand. And over the past 15 or so months, Bremont has been working on repairing the damage, mostly by bringing back their recognizable watches to mix in with the new collections. After we got a new Martin-Baker watch, now we’re getting a new and more modern take on the Altitude MB Meteor Orange Barrel.

The Orange Barrel sees the use once again of the Trip-Tick case that Bremont was so well known for. The case is made out of grade 2 titanium, with a central barrel coated in bright orange Cerakote ceramic with a knurled pattern. The update to the case comes in the dimensions, which are now much more wearable — 42mm wide, 12.23mm thick, with a 49.3mm lug-to-lug. You still get the double downs, one to set the time and the other to operate the bi-directional Roto-Click internal bezel. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The dial comes in two versions, brushed silver or black, with applied stencil-style Arabic numerals. The hour and minute hands are done in black, with lumed inserts, while the seconds hand has a lollipop tip with its striped pullcord tail to mimic an ejector seat handle.

Inside, you’ll find Bremont’s calibre BB14-AH, but since Bremont gave up on an in-house movement, it’s a rebranded La Joux-Perret G100 beating at 4Hz, with a 68 hour power reserve. The movement is housed in a soft iron ring for magnetism protection and mounted in a rubberized mount for shock protection. You can have the watch on either a brushed grade 2 titanium bracelet with a concealed clasp or a black rubber, leather, or NATO strap.

The new Bremont Altitude MB Meteor is available now, priced at €5,500 on the straps and €5,950 on bracelet. See more on the Bremont website.

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Favre Leuba Adds Royal Purple To Its Handsome Chief Date Collection

It’s easy to forget how devastating the quartz crisis was for the Swiss watch industry. One of the companies that came and went from the forefront of Swiss watchmaking is Favre Leuba, which has actually been around since 1737. The quartz crisis forced the founding family to sell the company in 1985, only to be revived a few years later and stumble again. Last year, for the third time, Favre Leuba announced that they are making another go at it, when they introduced three new collections and 22 new watches. Now, it’s time to start expanding those collection. This is the new Favre Leuba Chief Date Royal Purple.

This is, as the name would hint, an expansion of the Chief Date collection, which means that it comes in a cushion-shaped stainless steel case that measures 40mm wide and 10.81mm thick. It’s an interesting case that shifts from a rather soft main body to integrated lugs that are quite sharp and downward angled. Contributing to the interesting look are the cutouts in the flanks that are polished, contrasting with the roughly brushed rest of the case. Also, there’s no bezel on top and the top of the case is in line with the sapphire crystal. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The case is well known, but what’s new is the dial. And it’s quite the dial. Rendered in a beautiful sunburst finished purple, you’ll find a 60 minute scale on the fixed sloping flange around the perimeter. The main part of the dial has an engraved pattern of hourglasses, Favre Leuba’s logo. The hands are rhodium plated, filled with Super-LumiNova C1 X1, as are the applied faceted indices. At 3 o’clock you’ll find the simple date aperture with a white disc.

Inside, you’ll find the automatic FLD03, which is made in collaboration with La Joux-Perret. It beats at 4Hz and has a 68 hour power reserve, with some quite nice decorations, which include a custom skeletonised rotor with colimaçonnage and soleil brushing, Geneva stripes on the bridges and blued screws. The watch comes on either a stainless steel bracelet featuring polished centre links and vertically brushed side links or a matching purple FKM rubber strap.

The new Favre Leuba Chief Date Royal Purple is available now, priced at CHF 2,300 on rubber or CHF 2,375 on steel. See more on the Favre Leuba website.

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Hautlence Introduces The Helix Series 1 With Central Cylindrical Tourbillon And Double Retrograde Display

Just by looking at photos, Hautlence watches might be either one of those Chinese novelty watches that mess with the way they display time and sell for a few hundred euros, or a meticulously crafter work of art that costs as much as a small apartment in my city. They are, of course, the latter and they are best known for their TV-shaped watches, as well as excursions into some pretty wild designs. However, the latest release keeps things just in line with what they’re best known for. This is the new Hautlence Helix Series 1.

The signature TV shaped case remains, but it’s a bit redone from the other models for easier wear. The case is made out of grade 5 titanium, and now measures 45.1mm wide. But being a TV-shaped case the width tells only half the story. With a thickness of just 11.8mm, including the sapphire crystals, and a lug-to-lug of just 37mm, this will fit a bunch of wrist sizes. It also has 100 meters of water resistance, which is respectable for the genre.

Moving on to the dial… it doesn’t have one to speak of. But there’s a lot going on here. The time is told on the sides of the dial opening, with two vertical retrograde indications for the hours and minutes. The two arched tracks on the sides have a blue background onto which the numerals are applied in Globolight, basically chunks of lume, while the indicating stalks are in their separate track running parallel. The centre of the dial looks like an openworked movement, but actually isn’t the gears, levers and bridges you see on the front all operate the retrograde indications, with a rare one-minute tourbillon with a cylindrical hairspring at the very middle.

That one-minute tourbillon with a cylindrical hairspring is part of the in-house calibre D51, developed by Hautlence’s sister company, Precision Engineering. The movement beats at 3Hz and has a 65 hour power reserve. The movement is wound by a micro-rotor and it’s decorated quite sparsely, to match the minimalist look of the movement. The watch comes on a grey rubber strap with blue textile inserts.

The new Hautlence Helix Series 1 is limited to 28 pieces and priced at CHF 75,000. See more on the Hautlence 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

• Philippa Barnes spent her childhood in the Jesus Fellowship, an English religious community that promised utopia but imposed authoritarian control, communal living, and routine abuse—physical, emotional, and sexual. After years of indoctrination, she broke free, helping expose systemic harm and win redress for hundreds of survivors. Decades later, her story is one of trauma, resilience, and the enduring quest for belonging.

• When Nasir Andar, a CIA-trained Afghan commando, survives a suicide bombing, he’s forced to leave everything behind as Kabul falls to the Taliban. Now exiled in Texas, scarred and still fighting for his comrades’ futures, Andar seeks purpose in a foreign land—haunted by sacrifice, broken promises, and the longing to help his fellow veterans feel at home.

• A landmark advance in mathematics: For decades, all elliptic curves were known to correspond to modular forms, bridging deep areas of number theory and paving the way to proofs like Fermat’s Last Theorem. Now, after years of effort, a team has extended this “modularity” connection to abelian surfaces—a higher-dimensional case—bringing mathematicians another step closer to a grand unified theory of math.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

More than half a century ago, mankind returned from the moon and landed in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Last week, Tudor released a short documentary called “Splashdown”, in which they tell the little-known story of the Navy UDT-SEAL frogmen - and their issued Tudor watches - who recovered the astronauts throughout the space program in the 1960s and '70s.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk