Citizen Expands The Smash-Hit 37mm Tsuyosa With A Purple And Blue Dial; IWC Shrinks Down The Pilot’s Watch TOP GUN Mojave; Beaubleu Joins The Shaped Watch Train; Ulysse Nardin's Rose Gold Freak X

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Another short and fun one, the best there are.

In this issue:

• Citizen Expands The Smash-Hit 37mm Tsuyosa Collection With A Purple And Blue Dial

• IWC Shrinks Down And Simplifies The IWC Pilot’s Watch Automatic 41 TOP GUN Mojave

• French Brand Beaubleu Joins The Shaped Watch Train With The Striking Ecce Figura

• Ulysse Nardin Pairs Blue Enamel With Rose Gold On Their New Freak X

👂What’s new

1/

Citizen Expands The Smash-Hit 37mm Tsuyosa Collection With A Purple And Blue Dial

Citizen hit it on the head when they released the Tsuyosa collection. With great proportions, a decent movement and a price that won’t scare the majority of people away, they sold like hotcakes. But what do you do with a collection that’s a runaway hit? If you’re Citizen, you do exactly what needs to be done, what the people are asking for. You take your best selling Tsuyosa collection and shrink it down from 40mm to 37mm. This is exactly what they did in February, when Citizen introduced the Citizen Tsuyosa 37mm collection in three colors — dark green, pastel pink and ice blue. Now, not even four months later, they are adding two more colors which are just fantastic — blue and purple.

While the original Tsuyosa collection, which has been around since 2022, sounds like a large watch, it actually wasn’t. Mostly due to the fact that it had a surprisingly short lug-to-lug thanks to an integrated bracelet. It measured just 45mm on a 40mm width. The compact dimensions continue on the smaller version. Still made out of stainless steel, it measures 37mm wide and 11.5mm thick, with a great lug-to-lug of 43mm. Apart from the size, a lot remains the same. You still have the barrel shape, flat sapphire crystal on top, a mineral crystal out back and a recessed crown at 4 o’clock. Water resistance is a bit controversial at 50 meters, but will do fine.

The two new dials both get sunray brushed surfaces and the colors are really great, both a darker share of blue and purple. The setup of the dials remains the same as well — you get a brushed finish, applied markers and hands filled with lume. There’s also a date aperture at 3 o’clock with a cyclops above it.

Inside is the Citizen Calibre 8210 automatic movement which beats at 3Hz and has a 42 hour power reserve. It has an accuracy of -20/+40 per day, but like most of these more affordable movements, it performs much better in real life. The watch comes on a three-link tapering stainless steel bracelet that’s closed by a folding clasp with push-button release. Adjustment is possible on the clasp, but it requires a tool.

The new Citizen Tsuyosa 37mm keeps the same price, which is actually a bit controversial. Not for how high it is, because it really isn’t, but rather for its discrepancy between currencies. In Euro, expect to pay €299, while in the US the price is set at $450. See more on the Citizen website.

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IWC Shrinks Down And Simplifies The Pilot’s Watch Automatic 41 TOP GUN Mojave

Some two months ago, IWC quite quietly updated one of their most popular watches — the Pilot’s Watch Automatic TOP GUN Lake Tahoe. It was a smaller take on their large ceramic Big Pilot in the stark white case. A cool release, for sure, but I was never a white ceramic kind of guy. There’s no denying that their Woodland green shade is one of the best green watches on the market, but I would easily settle for even an Oceana or Mojave colorway. Well, looks like there are others like me out there, because IWC has now shrunk the Pilot’s Watch Automatic 41 TOP GUN Mojave.

And just like the Lake Tahoe, this new Mojave is also not based on the large ceramic Big Pilot, but rather on the more subdued Mark XX. It measures 41mm wide and 11.4mm thick which is slightly larger than the original steel version of the Mark XX (that measures 40×10.8mm). The increase in size is likely due to the more material being used to make the white zirconium oxide ceramic sturdy enough. The watch uses a stainless steel crown, a titanium caseback and inside is a soft-iron inner case for magnetic protection. Water resistance is 100 meters.

But like the larger version, you still get a matte brown dial with printed markers and white tracks that match the sand color of the case. The numerals and dots above every hour are painted with generous lume. There are some changes from the steel version, including blackened hands filled with sand colored lume and a color matched date disc that has a small aperture at 3 o’clock.

Inside, you’ll find the automatic calibre 32112, the same movement that the steel version of the Mark XX uses. It beats at 4Hz and has a 120 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a textured sand colored rubber strap, closed by a titanium pin buckle.

The new Pilot’s Watch Automatic 41 TOP GUN Mojave is available now, not limited, and priced at €9,200. See more on the IWC website.

3/

French Brand Beaubleu Joins The Shaped Watch Train With The Striking Ecce Figura

Like several other French brands, the Paris-based Beaubleu took it’s time establishing the brand. While it was started in 2017, it wasn’t until late 2023 that they established their first permanent collection, the Ecce. In the time between those two years, they did make some pretty unique watches, basing a lot of their design language on the use of circular hands. Their new collection builds on the Ecce and embraces the trendiness of shaped case while not sacrificing originality. This is the new Ecce Figura.

The new case of the Ecce Figura is largely rectangular, with a bit of an angle on the edges to actually make it octagonal. The case comes in two colors, either steel or PVD coating, and with two finishes, both polished or brushed. The case measures 30mm wide, 8.6mm thick and has a length of 39mm, making it wearable by pretty much anybody. Surrounding the sapphire crystal is a dramatically stepped bezel which gives the watch a lot of depth, and on the right side is also a stepped crown with the Beaubleu logo. Water resistance is 30 meters, which is just enough to make you not worry.

Six dials are available at launch, and they all look great. The Ecce Figura Lys, Onyx, Smalt come in white, black and blue with grooved out indices, the Alba gets a white dial with a printed track and indices, while the Vesperal and Sienna get brushed steel or gold colored metal dials with applied indices. And like previous versions, this also features three oversized circular hands that just look so unique.

Inside is the Miyota 9015 automatic movement. We know this movement very well, with its 4Hz beat rate and a power reserve of 42 hours. Accuracy is not spectacular at -10/+30 seconds per day, but the hands on these watches are not as precise to make ti matter all that much. The watches come on color matched mesh bracelets.

The new Beaubleu Ecce Figura is available for pre-order now, with deliveries starting in October. Price is set at €890, which is just great. see more on the Beaubleu website.

4/

Ulysse Nardin Pairs Blue Enamel With Rose Gold On Their New Freak X

The Ulysse Nardin Freak was made by one of my all time favorite watchmakers, Ludwig Oechslin. It is a really interesting watch that combines major parts of the movement with a a minute hand to give you a truly unique watch, which is a rarity in the industry. It’s also really complicated, which also means that it’s rather expensive. To combat that, UN released the Freak X, a slightly simplified version of the original Freak, making some concessions to bring down the price. Although, it’s not cheap. Especially when it’s made out of rose gold with a blue enamel guilloché mainplate, like this latest release, the Freak X Gold Enamel.

The new watch comes in a case that combines two material — the afore mentioned rose gold, but also a beautiful shade of blue PVD-coated titanium that makes up the midcase visible through the openings in the rose gold. While the titanium has a slight matte rough texture, the gold is brushed for a really cool look. The case measures 43mm wide and 13.38mm thick and features a more traditional crown on the right side, something that the original Freak does not have. Water resistance is 50 meters.

Like all other Freak X watches, this one also has the carousel construction that continuously rotates over the mainplate, holding the oversized silicium balance wheel and pointing to the hours and minutes. The carousel and the gears are finished in rose gold to match the case and stand out from the really beautiful guilloché mainplate, with a blue enamel finish.

Powering the watch is the UN-230 calibre with automatic winding, which is actually used to indicate the hours, while the baguette-shaped one-hour carrousel indicates the minutes. The movement beats at 3Hz and has a 72 hour power reserve. The balance wheel has nickel flyweights and micro-blades attached to the minute hand for stability. The watch comes on a blue alligator leather strap with a rose gold and blue PVD-coated titanium folding buckle.

The new Ulysse Nardin Freak X Gold Enamel is limited to 120 pieces, priced at €49,100. See more on the Ulysse Nardin 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

• Filming sex scenes is no easy feat, from the choreography to the . . . logistics. And then that’s before you take the actor’s comfort and dignity into consideation. So, while the idea of the on-set “intimacy coordinator” is less than a decade old, it’s all but standard at this point. But what does it actually entail? Well, certification, for one—which Jennifer Wilson gamely undergoes for her feature on the burgeoning profession. This being The New Yorker, there’s no stooping for easy laughs; instead, Wilson explores the ins and outs of a fascinating profession.

• In 2025, an unusually high number of whales have washed up dead along the shores of the greater San Francisco Bay Area region—nine gray whales in just the past two weeks. The images are haunting: massive, graceful creatures decomposing on the sand. But Omnia Saed’s short yet poignant Atmos essay, accompanied by stunning photographs by Lena C. Emery, offers a kind of solace. Saed reframes the death of a whale not as an end, but as a beginning—and a boon to the deep sea. When a dead whale sinks to the ocean floor, its body becomes food and organic matter for years and decades to come.

• Secret Billionaires. Age-Gap Marriages. Plenty of Revenge. How a Chinese-backed soap-opera app is keeping L.A. actors employed.

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Thanks for reading,
Vuk