Longines Gives The Central Power Reserve A Lighter Look; Awake's Gold Leaf; Straum Debuts Titanium Bracelet; Depancel's Talbot-Lago Race Car Inspired Watch; MB&F Celebrates First American Lounge

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Longines really knows how to pull off a fantastic retro watch.

In this issue

• Longines Gives the Conquest Heritage Central Power Reserve A Lighter Look

• Awake Turns To Gold For The New Son Mai Frosted Leaf Royal Blue

• Straum Debuts Its Titanium Bracelet With The Jan Mayen Frozen Metal Titanium

• Depancel's New Série-R Chronograph Borrows Its Color Story From A Talbot-Lago Race Car

• MB&F Celebrates Opening Of First American Lounge With A Rose Gold LM101 EVO

👂What’s new

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Longines Gives the Conquest Heritage Central Power Reserve A Lighter Look

The Longines Conquest Heritage Central Power Reserve returns for 2026 with a new light-blue opaline dial, two years after the model's re-edition revived a rotating-disc power reserve indicator first patented in 1959.

The stainless steel case is 38mm wide and 12.3mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 45.6mm that keeps it wearable despite the vintage proportions. Longines alternates satin brushing and polishing across the case, keeps the winged hourglass logo on the crown, and fits a box-shaped sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating on both sides. The caseback is screw-down sapphire and water resistance is 50 meters, which is fine for a watch that will spend its life at a desk, rather than in a pool.

The big change is the color. Light-blue opaline is softer and more relaxed than the dark tones Longines has used on this model before, without losing the formality. Faceted rhodium-plated hour markers point in toward the center, luminous skyscraper hands indicate the time, and a trapezoid-framed date window sits at 12 o'clock. At the center you still get the two unique rotating discs. The outer disc winds up as you wear the watch, then both discs move together as the mainspring runs down, walking a black baton-shaped indicator toward zero.

Power comes from the Longines calibre L896.5, an automatic built by ETA specifically for the brand, running at 3.5Hz with a silicon balance spring for better resistance to magnetism. You can see all of it through that sapphire caseback. The watch can be had on a stainless steel bracelet with a double-folding clasp and micro-adjustment, or on a grey alligator strap closed with a heritage-style pin buckle.

The Conquest Heritage Central Power Reserve is available now, priced at €4,250 on the leather strap and €4,400 on the bracelet. See more on the Longines website.

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Awake Turns To Gold For The New Son Mai Frosted Leaf Royal Blue

After a few years of very interesting watches that all shared a very different design language than what we see today, Awake switched to making lacquer dials with ancient techniques. And they’re playing around a lot with them, changing from one dial to the next, and every time they've circled back to add a new material to the mix, it's worked. First it was silver leaf under lacquer, then last year the Frosted Leaf editions doubled down with a heavier, layered texture. Now they're using gold leaf for the first time, paired with blue lacquer, in the Son Mai Frosted Leaf Royal Blue.

The case is compact by current standards at 38mm wide and 11.5mm thick, in stainless steel with polished and brushed surfaces. The crown has been slimmed down, the lugs curve gently toward the wrist, and a domed sapphire crystal sits on top. That crown doesn’t screw down, but you still get 100 meters of water resistance.

On the dial, Awake built up a "mille-feuille" construction, layering Son Mai lacquer with natural blue pigments, sealing it under varnish, brushing on pure gold leaf by hand, then sanding it down. They repeat the process with lighter blue pigments to get the frosted, "Glacis" finish. The hands and indices are solid blocks of lume capped with faceted steel, which is one of the coolest effects in the industry, giving them a backglow.

Inside is the La Joux-Perret G101, running at 4Hz with a 68-hour power reserve, decorated with Geneva stripes and a tungsten rotor visible through the sapphire caseback. The strap is blue Alcantara made by Jean Rousseau, with a micro-adjustable pin buckle for quick sizing through the day.

The Awake Son Mai Frosted Leaf Royal Blue is available now, limited to 200 pieces, priced at €3,125. See more on the Awake website.

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Straum Debuts Its Titanium Bracelet With The Jan Mayen Frozen Metal Titanium

Straum has built its reputation on translating Norwegian landscapes into dial work, using texture and colour to do the storytelling. The result have been some of the most impressive dials in the business. Certainly the most impressive at this price point. The Jan Mayen Frozen Metal Titanium continues that pattern with a frost-inspired dial, but perhaps more interesting than the dial is the bracelet Straum fans have been waiting for for so long — their own grade 5 titanium bracelet, complete with a micro-adjust clasp, and it's compatible with every existing titanium Jan Mayen in the lineup.

The case measures 38.7mm wide and 11.5mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 45.7mm, in bead-blasted grade 5 titanium with polished edges to break up the finish. Small enough for daily use and substantial enough to take the role of a sports watch. A screw-down crown and 100 meters of water resistance back that up.

You know that the dial will be the main attraction. A proprietary galvanic treatment creates what the brand calls a reverse fumé effect. Instead of the usual gradient darkening toward the edges, the metal frosts at the perimeter and looks like ice spreading in from the case wall. Paired with polished Frostbite Blue PVD hands and indices against the silver-white base, it exactly as cold as you imagine it.

Inside is the La Joux-Perret G101, a familiar name in this segment, here regulated to four positions at Soigné grade. You get 68 hours of power reserve and a 4Hz beat rate, visible through an exhibition caseback. The new titanium bracelet tapers from 24.8mm down to 18mm at the clasp, matches the case finishing, and uses a butterfly clasp with 4mm of micro-adjustment plus a quick-release system. If you'd rather skip the bracelet, an FKM rubber strap is available in several colors.

The Straum Jan Mayen Frozen Metal Titanium is up for pre-order now, priced at €2,260 on the bracelet or €2,000 on rubber. See more on the Straum website.

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Depancel's New Série-R Chronograph Borrows Its Color Story From A Talbot-Lago Race Car

Depancel is releasing a new version of its square Série-R Chronograph, limited to 100 numbered examples, with a dial built around the color of a 1947 Talbot-Lago T26 bodied by Figoni & Falaschi. Depancel's square-cased chronographs have leaned on automotive references before, but this one is more literal than most, built around a single specific car rather than a general era or style. And I like it a lot.

The case measures 40mm by 36mm, with a thickness of 13.3mm (12.4mm without the crystal) and a lug-to-lug of 48.5mm. The steel case takes its shape from vintage automobile grilles, with vertical brushing at 6 and 12 o'clock set against polished surfaces at 3 and 9. A bevelled sapphire crystal is on top, with an internal anti-reflective coating. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The dial is an incredible glacier blue, a cold and pale PVD finish that echoes Talbot-Lago's bodywork. The square dial has a vertically brushed finish, with a sunken in round dial for the time telling part. The hands are a house design Depancel calls its "Dashboard" hands, continuing the car-interior references, and there’s plenty of Super-LumiNova C1 white lume everywhere.

Inside is the Peacock SL-4801, a self-winding chronograph movement with a 55-hour power reserve, visible through an open case back. The watch comes on a bull leather strap with a steel buckle and 22mm lug width.

Depancel Série-R Chronograph Ice Blue Edition is limited to 100 pieces, priced at €1,495. See more on the Depancel website.

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MB&F Celebrates Opening Of First American Lounge With A Rose Gold LM101 EVO

MB&F spent more than two decades selling watches in the United States through other people's shops, so opening its own lounge in Manhattan is a big moment for the brand. And when MB&F marks a moment, a limited edition follows. The LM101 EVO NYC Edition takes last year's titanium LM101 EVO, recasts it in 5N+ rose gold with a black dial plate, and limits it to 25 examples sold only at the new lounge. It’s a surprisingly restrained LE to mark entry into the New York market.

The case measures 40mm wide and 16.5mm thick, now in 5N+ rose gold instead of titanium. Everything that made the EVO the Legacy Machine you can actually live with carries over: a screw-down crown, water resistance of 80 meters, and the patented FlexRing damper that cushions the movement against knocks. The high domed sapphire crystal stays, and the caseback carries an "MB&F NYC" engraving in case you ever forget where you bought it.

The dial plate is black PVD with a sunray-brushed finish, and the darker backdrop does exactly what it should under this architecture. The 14mm flying balance wheel, suspended high beneath the crystal, stands out even more against black than it did against the titanium version's lighter plate. Time indication and power reserve sit on two floating sub-dials below it, and there is no angle from which this could be mistaken for anything other than a Legacy Machine.

Inside is the manually wound LM101 EVO calibre, beating at 2.5Hz with a 60-hour power reserve and a Straumann double hairspring produced by Precision Engineering AG. The finishing on the back is worth flipping the watch over for, special engraving or not. It comes on an integrated black rubber strap.

The MB&F LM101 EVO NYC Edition is limited to 25 examples, priced at $105,000, and available exclusively at the MB&F lounge in New York. See more on the MB&F website.

⏲️End links

A bunch of links that might or might not have something to do with watches. One thing’s for sure - they’re interesting

• Most people’s exposure to Tom Colicchio is through his long-running gig as head judge on Top Chef. Fewer have probably walked through the doors of his New York City restaurant Craft, which after 25 years closed its doors in late June. Through Craft, Colicchio helped spark a resurgence of family-style dining; Craft’s short ribs and roast chicken (and those sauces!) became the stuff of legend. Journalist and Switchyard founder Ted Genoways spent Craft’s final two days haunting the restaurant: shadowing its chefs, eating its food, speaking to diners, and spending time with his longtime friend Colicchio. The result, co-published with Esquire, isn’t sentimental enough to be an elegy, but still might make you a little misty. And hungry.

• Alpha-gal may sound like a nickname from a teen movie, but it’s actually a sugar molecule found in most mammals—just not in humans. When people are exposed to it, usually via a tick bite, they can develop an allergy that’s later triggered by eating meat. The idea of developing a meat allergy from a tick bite can sound far-fetched, but Burkhard Bilger carefully walks us through the science and introduces us to the people whose lives have been transformed by alpha-gal syndrome. After reading his account, you may find yourself anxiously checking for ticks after every brush with grass.

• My World Cup viewing has been nothing but clips, a selection of seconds excerpted from a 90-minute game and uploaded to one social-media platform or another. A clip, writes Corley Miller, excises “the exhausting valiant constancy, the refining and hindering of designs”—the raw material of the majority of the game. The dynamics of soccer can make it a lackluster sport. (“Usually,” writes Miller, “it doesn’t work.”) And yet those dynamics sometimes coalesce, suddenly and unexpectedly, into a few astonishing seconds of play. I could care less about soccer, truth be told. But I was thoroughly charmed by Miller’s consideration of World Cup clips, and whether they might preserve and bolster the game’s fleeting moments of grace.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

This is one of the best videos you will watch this month. Not only is the format absolutely brilliant and the host Josh Scherer one of the best interviewers today, José Andrés is a national treasure that needs to be protected. Also, what a wonderful last meal.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk