Formex Presents Second Gen Titanium Field Watch At A Great Price; Zenith Updates Triple Calendar With Lapis Lazuli Dial; MDM Pays Homage To The Hotel Concierge; Obsidian Dials For The Piaget Polo

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. After years of practically ignoring Formex, I’m now fully on board with whatever they can come up with. Love it!

In this issue:

• Formex Presents The Second Generation Field Automatic With Hardened Titanium Case And Great Price

• Zenith Updates The Chronomaster Triple Calendar With A Lapis Lazuli Dial

• Maurice De Mauriac Releases A Watch That Pays Homage To The Hotel Concierge

• Piaget Polo Equips The Ultra-Thin Perpetual Calendar With Obsidian Dials

👂What’s new

1/

Formex Presents The Second Generation Field Automatic With Hardened Titanium Case And Great Price

It was during Time to Watches, the watch fair that is adjacent to Watches and Wonders, that I finally understood what Formex is all about. Up to the fair this year, I liked the watches, but wasn’t exactly obsessed. That’s because Formex doesn’t just make good looking watches — they are — they make some of the best made watches I’ve ever handled. I can’t even begin to describe to you the feeling of completely change in my perspective the moment I put on a Formex Reef. It went from: “hey, that’s a nice watch”, to: “oh my, this is one of the best watches in the world”. It’s that drastic. So, in the past two months, I’ve become a huge Formex fan, and I can’t help it. Today, we have a new release from the brand, one that builds on the 2022 release of the Field Automatic which came in a simple titanium case and some great looking dials and straps. The Formex Field Automatic Gen 2 gets a smaller case, new dials and keeps a price that’s kind of rare in the market.

The new case of the Field Automatic changes up the dimensions just a bit. It now measures 40mm wide, 10.5mm thick and has a surprisingly long lug-to-lug of 48mm, considering the fact that it has stubby lugs. It’s not huge, by any means, I would have just expected something in the 45mm range. The case is made out o Grade 2 titanium. People will prefer Grade 5, but that’s much harder to finish nicely. Instead, Formex gives the Grade 2 case a full sandblasted matte finish, and then applies a proprietary hardening process, increasing surface hardness from 145 Vickers to 900 Vickers, making it nearly three times harder than standard Grade 5 titanium. Water resistance is 150 meters.

Then, we have a brand new dial, now made out of two parts — a flat sunburst-brushed centre surrounded by a sloped minute track. It has a bit of sandwich construction style, with recessed stencil numerals that give a lot of depth and a lot of glow at night, thanks to the Super-LumiNova Grade A and BGW09 lume. At 6 is a really nicely integrated date aperture, with bevels on the sides. The hands are syringe-style, while the seconds hand has a lollipop near the top. There are three colors to choose from at launch — Ice Blue and Coho Salmon which have black colored lume, and Basalt Grey with white lume.

Inside, you’ll find the tried and tested, robust and easily servicable Sellita SW200-1 automatic. It beats at 4Hz and has a 41 hour power reserve. You have a choice of straps, including nylon Velcro with woven texture in various colors, as well as leather which comes with Formex’s patented fine-adjustment deployant carbon clasp.

The new Formex Field is available for pre-order now, with deliveries starting in June 2025. Price is set at €850 on velcro and €990 on leather, which is a great price lately, since we haven’t seen many SW200-powered watches below the €1k treshold, which used to be the norm. See more on the Formex website.

2/

Zenith Updates The Chronomaster Triple Calendar With A Lapis Lazuli Dial

It’s quite obvious that the Zenith Chronomaster Triple Calendar has struck a chord with customers. It was introduced last year, with a pretty cool story behind it. Almost 55 years ago, Zenith produced 25 pieces of a prototype of an El Primero that was supposed to serve as a proof of concpet. The A386 as it was called was redesigned to accommodate a triple calendar, moonphase, and chronograph. At the same time, people went crazy for their El Primero chronograph so Zenith moved away from the complicated watch and moved into the 70s with variations of the chrono. Only a few of these prototypes found their way to the public and in 2012 one was auctioned off for $40,000. Turns out, it was Zenith that bought that watch at auction and more than a decade later, they introduced the Chronomaster Triple Calendar with a new complete calendar caliber in three great colors. Earlier this year, they released a rose gold case version. Now, they’re giving it a stone dial, turning the Triple Calendar into one of their more interesting offerings.

The modern watch is very much similar to the original, with slight modern updates. The stainless steel case measures 38mm wide and 14mm thick, and a lug-to-lug measurement of 46mm. On top is a domed sapphire crystal. The sides of the case are polished, while the top is fully brushed. Water resistance is 50 meters.

Technically, this isn’t the first time we’ve gotten a stone dial Triple Calendar. Last year, Zenith teamed up with Hodinkee for a version with a meteorite dial. This one, like the name suggests, gets a lapis lazuli stone dial that gives it a unique and beautiful blue color. The rest remains the same, with a white band on the periphery that holds the 1/10th of a second scale. The date window is at 4.30, the worst of all the date positions despite it being traditional for the El Primero, but then you notice that there’s a day indicator next to the 10 o’clock marker and a month indicator at 2 o’clock. Zenith’s effort to include a triple calendar, as well as a moonphase which is integrated into the chronograph’s 60-minute counter at 6 o’clock, works like a charm here.

Inside is Zenith’s in-house-produced El Primero 3610 caliber. It beats at 36,000vph, has a 60-hour power reserve and seeing how it’s an evolution of the El Primero caliber 3600 that powers the regular Chronomaster Original, it’s precise down to 1/10th of a second. The watch comes with a blue calfskin leather strap with a folding clasp, and a stainless steel bracelet with a folding clasp.

The new Zenith Chronomaster Triple Calendar Lapis Lazuli is available now, priced at €23,700. See more on the Zenith website.

3/

Maurice De Mauriac Releases A Watch That Pays Homage To The Hotel Concierge

Maurice de Mauriac is a bit of a strange watch brand. They walk that fine line of strangeness perfectly, dipping into perfect niches that nobody else is really addressing. Obscure car races, tennis, European cities… if you have any interest in any of those, MDM has you covered. For their latest themed watch, they are releasing the L3 Les Clefs d’Or. If you don’t know what the Les Clefs d’Or is, let me just say that there’s no way you will be getting one of these watches. Les Clefs d’Or is an international organization of concierge professionals, with more than 4,000 members. And MDM is paying homage to them with this very exclusive watch.

Based on the Maurice de Mauriac L3 Spheric Blue tricompax chronograph, the watch remains fairly standard on the outside. The watch measures 40.5mm wide, 12.99mm thick, with a 47.7mm lug-to-lug. You can get it in either stainless steel or with a gold PVD coating, both in a combination of brushed and polished surfaces.

But the case is the least important part. It’s all about that very nice dark blue sunray brushed dial that works great with the gold case in particular. It’s pretty much the same dial you would find on the L3 Spheric Blue, with a tri-compax setup that has a minute counter at 3, a half-hour counter at 6 and a running seconds at 9 o’clock. But most importantly, of course, is the inclusion on the crossed golden keys logo of the Les Clefs d’Or that sits at 6.

Inside, you’ll find the Concepto C8100-A movement which has been customized by MDM with a rotor that has not just the Les Clefs d’Or logo, but also an engraving of the owner’s name and membership number. That’s cool. The movement beats at 4Hz and has a 48 hour power reserve. The watches can be had on a number of straps — either a cognac, chocolate or black leather strap or a stainless steel Milanese that’s color matched to the case.

Now for some bad news. The new Maurice de Mauriac L3 Les Clefs d’Or is priced at CHF 4,600, which is not cheap. However, good luck getting one. The only way you can purchase it is by being a member of the Les Clefs d’Or, which is kind of cool. See more on the Maurice de Mauriac website.

4/

Piaget Polo Equips The Ultra-Thin Perpetual Calendar With Obsidian Dials

Here we have Piaget marrying the two things they have been really good at for decades — a super thin case and stone dials. Sure, those two things happened in different decades, with the stone dials being super popular in the 70s and 80s, while the race to the thinnest watch has been going on in the past decade or so. The two flexes now come together in the new Piaget Polo Perpetual Calendar with a choice of blue or green obsidian dials.

The Perpetual Calendar Polo has been around since 2023, and this release uses the same case. It’s cushion-shaped, made out of 18k white gold, and measures 42mm wide and a pretty fantastic 8.65mm. The sub 9mm would be great even for a regular automatic movement, let alone one that has a perpetual calendar function. The cases have a brushed sides, polished bevels, with the blue version getting a satin brushed flat bezel and the green version getting a bezel set with 56 bright-green claw-set emeralds, varying in size to fit the curves of the bezel.

Like I said, there are two dial options, and hthey are both made out of obsidian, a form of volcanic glass. You can have it either blue or green and since these are natural stones, no two are the same. You get three sub-dials for the perpetual calendar — month and leap year indicator are at noon, the pointer date is at 3 o’clock, and the day of the week is at 9 o’clock. At 6 is a gold framed aperture for the moon phase. Along with that you get applied hour markers and openworked hour and minute hands that have blue or green inserts.

Inside is the ultra-thin calibre 1255P. It’s wound by a micro-rotor, beats at 31,600vph and has a power reserve of 42 hours. And if you keep it wound, it won’t need adjusting until the year 2100. The watches come on color matched rubber straps with embossed gadroons, another Piaget classic.

The new Piaget Polo Perpetual Calendar Obsidian Blue is part of the regular collection and priced at €108,000, while the Piaget Polo Perpetual Calendar Obsidian Green model is limited to just 18 pieces and priced at €149,000. See more on the Piaget 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

• Richard Garwin’s role in designing the hydrogen bomb was obscured from the public, even his family, as he advised presidents and devoted his life to undoing the danger he created. This is the secret that a scientist fighting nuclear armageddon hid for 50 years.

• This title of the article that dives deep into the chaos happening at OpenAI says everything you need to know: “We’re Definitely Going to Build a Bunker Before We Release Agi” That’s reassuring.

• In this excerpt from her book, Look Ma, No Hands, Gabrielle Drolet explains the many different facets of her writing career. The world of a freelancer can be a precarious one. Scared to turn down any work, Drolet collects several bizarre writing gigs, offering an insight into the incredible flexibility required to call yourself a professional writer.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

A very charming video from a tech, and not a watch, enthusiast. I wonder if modern Timex could recreate the watch today.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk