Mido Introduces Commander Datoday Collection; Orient's New Mako 40 Watches; Eska Offers A Destro Amphibian 250; A Lumed Carbon March LA.B AM2 Nyctalope; GP Debuts Minute Repeater Flying Bridges

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. I would love to know what everyone thinks of destro watches? I’m a pretty big fan.

In this issue

• Mido Introduces Their New Daily Commander Datoday Collection

• Orient Brings Classic Mako Design Cues To The Smaller Mako 40 Collection

• Eska Now Makes Their Amphibian 250 In A Destro Configuration

• March LA.B Millésime March 2026 Edition Is The Lumed Carbon AM2 Nyctalope

• Girard-Perregaux Debuts A New Movement In The Minute Repeater Flying Bridges

👂What’s new

1/

Mido Introduces Their New Daily Commander Datoday Collection

Mido makes some of the best Swatch Group watches. Sure, they make some unremarkable and boing watches, but their Multifort TV Big Date oozes 70s cool, and the Ocean Star line is incredible. The Tribute is a great diver, the GMT might be the best looking one on the market for the price and the Decompression Worldtimer is just incredible. Then there’s the Commadner line. Some may call it conservative (despite it having some pretty intense looking dials), but others would describe it as subdued, like a daily watch should be. Well, Mido is doubling down on that daily wearable concept with a new collection, the Mido Commander Datoday.

The case tries to remain as unintrusive as possible while keeping some classic proportions. It’s made out of steel, measuring 40mm wide and 10.7mm thick. I can’t find the lug-to-lug measurement, but thanks to the 21mm width between lugs, it appears that hey are fairly short. The case gets a mix of brushed and polished finishes, while on top is a sapphire crystal, surrounded by a super thin bezel that allows the crystal to go all the way to the edges. The one thing that should be improved right away is the water resistance, as 50 meters really doesn’t imbue much confidence.

The dial looks very familiar, as it’s very similar to other Commander dials. They all have a sunray-brushed centre and a smooth angled flange on the edges. You get applied markers, polished just like the hands, with black and luminous inserts. New for these dials, as indicated by the name, is the day-date aperture at 3 o’clock. There are four dial options available — dark blue, silver, anthracite and a fantastic dark green, which is paired with a rose gold PVD coating on the case and bracelet.

Inside, no surprises. It’s the Calibre 80, a renamed Powermatic 80, Swatch Group’s evolution of the ETA 2824, with a magnetic resistant Nivachron balance spring, a 3Hz beat rate and a 80h power reserve. The watches come on a 3-link stainless steel bracelet, closed with a folding clasp.

The new Mido Commander Datoday is available now, priced at €990 for the steel versions and €1,150 for the rose gold PVD case. See more on the Mido website.

2/

Orient Brings Classic Mako Design Cues To The Smaller Mako 40 Collection

I’ve been on Orient’s case for quite some time for not having a half-decent website, and refusing to tell people when new watches came out. Well, that’s changed recently, with a new global website. But I still manage to miss some of their releases. For example, during the recent barrage of new models, I didn’t see they updated the Mako 40, the smaller version of their iconic Mako Diver, with details that were previously available only on the larger watches.

The case is very familiar here. It’s made out of stainless steel and measuring 39.9mm wide and 12.8mm thick. It’s a fairly simple case with long-ish straight lugs and a chamfer around the entire edge of the case. All five versions have stainless steel bezels on top with a 60 minute scale, surrounding sapphire crystals, a closed caseback, a screw-down crown and 200 meters of water resistance.

The dials are where we’re getting updates. New are the triangle at 12 and arrow-shaped hour and minute hands, all filled with lume and previously available only on the larger Mako watches. The bases of the dials come in five colors, and all with sunray brushed finishes. The RA-AC0Q13E gets a green dial, the RA-AC0Q14L gets a blue dial, the RA-AC0Q15Y a brown one, the RA-AC0Q16N a grey, and the RA-AC0Q17Y gets a copper colored dial.

Inside, you’ll find the Caliber F6722, their in-house automatic which beats at 3Hz and has a 40 hour power reserve. The watches come on a stainless steel bracelet with a folding clasp.

The new Orient Mako 40 should be available now, with all watches priced at €440. See more on the Orient website.

3/

Eska Now Makes Their Amphibian 250 In A Destro Configuration

The idea behind a destro-orientation watch is pretty simple — the crown is flipped to the left side of the case to be easier to operate when a left-handed person wears it on their right hand. But I love them for a different reason: they don’t dig into my hand. In my previous work, I used to lean on desks a lot while talking, and no matter how high I would wear the watch on my wrist, they would inevitably dig in. So, I love a good left-hand side crown, and I love it even more when there’s a choice. That’s exactly what the French brand Eska is doing with their cool Amphibian 250 diver, which they no offer in a destro configuration option. Currently, they are available in their Black and White Shark colorways, and I assume they will be available in future colors as well.

Other than the crown position, the case remains largely the same. That means that it measures 40mm wide, 13.5mm thick and with a lug-to-lug of 46mm, so pretty decent dimensions when it comes to chunky divers. While the unidirectional bezel is no longer bakelite, it does keep a vintage look with large numerals rendered in beige and a coin edge. To continue with the vintage aesthetic, the new Amphibian also has a double domed sapphire crystal. With the screw-down crown you get 250 meters of water resistance.

You get a choice of dials between the Black Shark and White Shark models, and you can assume what they stand for — one gets a black and the other gets a white dial. The rest is shared between the two. They both have a sandwich construction with cutouts for the indices filled in with Old Radium lume in beige. At 3, 6, 9 and 12 you’ll find oversized Arabic numerals. The hands are also filled in with Old Radium lume, with fantastic fonts used on the writing on the dial.

Inside, you’ll find the trusted and well known Sellita SW200. It beats at 4Hz and has a 38 hour power reserve. The watch comes with a black or sand colored tropic style rubber strap and a two-piece NATO-style strap.

The new Eska Amphibian 250 Destro is available now, priced the same as the regular crown configuration — €990. See more on the Eska website.

4/

March LA.B Millésime March 2026 Edition Is The Lumed Carbon AM2 Nyctalope

March LA.B is a curious company. Technically, they are based in Los Angeles and Biarritz, an unlikely pairing, and take a huge amount of inspiration from Paris, like for their Mansart collection which is inspired by Place Vendôme. That’s one interesting thing. The other is their use of shaped cases, a wonderful combination of curved squares and sharp facets. They are also known for releasing a yearly limited “Millésimée” watch to show of what they like best about their watches. For example, the one they did last year was a titanium AM2 with a GMT movement. This year, however, they take things a step further. The Millésime March 2026 Edition Nyctalope Carbon is still based on the AM2 model, but now made out of forged carbon with a lumed case. Wild stuff.

The March LA.B AM2 usually comes in two sizes, one measuring 39 and the other 36mm. This one uses the larger 38mm case which is still relatively compact thanks to a square-ish case — it’s 12.8mm thick and has a 44mm lug-to-lug. Technically, it’s not a square case, but rather an octagonal one. It’s made out of forged carbon that has a grey-green base color, with inclusions of bright green flecks. Those flecks, however, are luminous, so the entire case lights up at night. On top is a sapphire crystal, while out back is a green tinted glass. The crown once again sits at 4 o’clock and it’s now coated in black PVD. Water resistance is 100 meters.

Just as beautiful as the case is the dark green dial. It has a textured pattern in the center that the brands calls an armour pattern, and that’s surrounded by a dark green chapter ring. Inside the ring you’ll find bar-shaped indices and circular plots cut from solid blocks of Super-LumiNova, matching the glow of the case. At 6 o’clock is a framed date window with a black disc inside that has a green number 3 on the disc. The hour and minute hands are “tuning-fork style” and also filled with lume.

Inside, you’ll find the La Joux-Perret G110 which beats at 4Hz and has a 68 hour power reserve. The watch comes with two interchangeable jacquard-woven straps by Julien Faure: a black strap with titanium buckle and a green-and-black strap with black PVD steel buckle.

The new March LA.B AM2 Millésimée March 2026 Nyctalope Carbon is available now and limited to 169 pieces. Price is set at €2.495. See more on the March LA.B website.

5/

Girard-Perregaux Debuts A New Movement In The Minute Repeater Flying Bridges

Creating a new in-house movement is no easy feat. It takes a huge amount of work and often mountains of money. So it’s not uncommon to see brands take decades to release one such movement. Unless, of course, you’re Girard-Perregaux, which just unveiled their third new in-house movement in the past six months. That’s a feat in itself. But this new movement, pairing a minute repeater, tourbillon, micro-rotor and a wild construction is really something special. And it finds its place in the Girard-Perregaux Minute Repeater Flying Bridges.

The watch comes in a pink gold case that has quite a wrist presence. It measures 46mm wide and a whopping 17.9mm thick, but GP points out that there is a good reason why the watch is so large — a large case is better for sound resonance. On top and bottom of the case you’ll find box shaped crystals, which additionally amplify the sound of the hammers striking. On the left side of the case is a prominent repeater slide and on the right is a very good looking crown. Water resistance is not great at 30 meters, but this is a minute repeater. You won’t find many minute repeaters with huge water resistance.

The Bridges collection from GP is special for taking on a very architectural construction that doesn’t exactly need or want a dial, since the dial is actually the movement. You get the two huge horizontal pink gold bridges, the lyre-shaped cage tourbillon at 6 o’clock doubling for the small seconds indicator, and skeletonized lumed pink gold hands. Those point to a pink gold flange on the edge of the dial, with applied lumed markers. Floating around the entire dial you can see the gong for the minute repeater.

The movement you see on display is the new Calibre GP9530, an automatic that’s very special since it has a minute repeater, a tourbillon and a micro-rotor winding mechanism. Automatic minute repeaters are quite rare because of the space they take up and the sound they make. GP combats that by mounting the white gold micro-rotor on a jewel instead of a ball bearing, to reduce noise maximally. Helping the propagation of sound is the titanium mainplate and bridges, as titanium is good at amplifying sounds. The gongs are formed from a single piece of metal along with their support block, eliminating joints that might dampen vibrations. The movement beats at 21,600vph and has a 60 hour power reserve. Decorations are on point, as the movement has more than 1,300 polished chamfers, including 295 interior angles. You even get a plate engraved with the initials of the watchmaker who assembled the movement. The watch comes on a texture-stamped black rubber strap, closed by a pink gold triple-folding clasp.

The new Girard-Perregaux Minute Repeater Flying Bridges isn’t a limited edition, but I don’t imagine there will be a huge number of people queuing up for a CHF 564,000 watch. See more on the Girard-Perregaux 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

• In this epic, 13,000+ word piece, McKay Coppins investigates the massive popularity of sports betting in America, and the havoc it’s wreaking on leagues, athletes, and gamblers and their families. To make sure he had some skin in the game for the story, Coppins struck a deal with The Atlantic: They gave him a stake of $10,000 to bet with, pledging to split any profits with him 50-50. No one could have bet on what happened to Coppins, a practicing Mormon man with four kids more likely to be found wrestling a toddler into a car seat than scouring moneylines or consulting betting touts.

• Magazines like The Source and XXL were more than outlets for brilliant journalism; they were a corrective to the dismissive, even racist way mainstream music outlets approached hip-hop. In too many cases, though, these magazines’ print archives were never digitized—and now, with so many defunct or simply beset by link rot, a crisis of impermanence is threatening the culture’s written history.

• What do Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal, Kris Jenner’s facelift, Martha Stewart’s cloned dogs, and Jurassic World: Rebirth have in common? Patrick R. Crowley, who draws on these cultural events and more for a provocative essay on whether our “pursuit of realism . . . is offering a set of diminishing returns” in the era of AI slop. Read this one slowly, and prepare yourself to open some tabs, so you can take optimal pleasure in the range of Crowley’s mind.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

These Type 7 videos are absolutely incredible.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk