Mido Ocean Star GMT In Gold And Chocolate; Frederique Constant Gives Their White Gold Tourbillon A MoP Dial; Bulgari Updates Aluminium Chrono In White And Blue; J.N. Shapiro's Infinity Series Pure

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. We have a few really good days of watches coming up in the next few days, I’m really looking forward to it.

In this issue:

• Mido Releases The Ocean Star GMT In A Great Combination Of Gold And Chocolate

• Frederique Constant Gives Their White Gold Classic Tourbillon Manufacture A Light Blue MoP Dial

• Bulgari Updates The Aluminium Chronographs In White And Blue For The Summer

• J.N. Shapiro Infinity Series Pure Reminds Us What Put The Indie Watchmaker On The Map

👂What’s new

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Mido Releases The Ocean Star GMT In A Great Combination Of Gold And Chocolate

Mido is rushing to get their summer lineup ready. And it’s working for them — there has been a handful of great divers, and a couple of more refined watches with a summer flair. Now, they’re releasing an update to the diver you would wear if your summer plans include changing time zones. This is the new Ocean Star GMT in a gold PVD covered case, with chocolate accents, a great movement and an even better price.

The case of this version of the Ocean Star GMT remain largely unchanged from previous version, except for the gold PVD coating. It also means that it’s quite a substantial watch, one that measures 44mm wide, 13.28mm thick, with a 50mm lug-to-lug. But it’s a dive watch primarily, as evident by its unidirectional rotating bezel that has a black 60 minute ceramic insert to track elapsed time. The second time zone is delegated to the rehaut, but you get a really cool caseback with an engraving of the 24 hour time zones. Also, being a dive watch, it has a 200 meter water resistance.

Like I said, Mido paired the gold colored case with chocolate details, but the details are a “blink-and-you’ll-miss-them” kind of thing. The dial gets a flat black base, with a black and brown flange on the edge holding the 24-hour scale, with the black standing for nighttime and brown for daytime. To match the gold of the case, the hands are gold plated, and the lumed markers get gold surrounds. The GMT hand is brown varnished, for more brown details.

Inside, you get the classic Powermatic 80 base movement which beats at 3Hz and has an 80 hour power reserve. It has a Nivachron balance spring, resistant to magnetic fields, and an additional GMT module. And it’s a flyer-style GMT, meaning you adjust the local hour hand in one-hour increments, making it perfect for travel. The watch comes on a brown rubber strap that closes with a gold PVD folding clasp with diving extension.

The new Mido Ocean Star GMT in gold and brown is available now and decently priced at €1,410. See more on the Mido website.

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Frederique Constant Gives Their White Gold Classic Tourbillon Manufacture A Light Blue MoP Dial

There seems to be a consensus among readers of this newsletter, and the internet at large, that Frederique Constant is the brand you look to when you want great value for money and accessible luxury. This, of course, doesn’t mean they make cheap or even affordable watches. But it does mean that you’ll be able to get a perpetual calendar from them for way under 10k. And a tourbillon and perpetual calendar for under 20k. But even when they go high end, they are somehow reasonably priced. As exemplified by this white gold Classic Tourbillon Manufacture with a blue mother-of-pearl dial.

The case of this watch has been rendered previously in all shades of gold and steel, but the white gold is likely the best one. It measures 39mm wide and 10.99mm thick. Of course, it’s fully polished. On top is a convex sapphire crystal and out back is a flat sapphire crystal. On the side is a very dramatic onion-shaped crown. Water resistance is 30 meters, which will do for a dress watch.

The new dial has a really beautiful mother-of-pearl dial that carries a grey-blue colorway that has to shimmer fantastically in the light. The rest remains quite familiar — diamond-cut applied hour markers and hand-polished lance-shaped hands. At 6 o’clock is a large aperture for the one-minute tourbillon that’s held in place by blued screws. The tourbillon also holds a small seconds hand.

Powering the watch is the FC-980-4 automatic tourbillon movement. Frederique Constant famously makes their movements in-house, and this one is no different. It beats at 4Hz and has a 38 hour power reserve. It also features a silicon escapement wheel and anchor and decent decorations which include hand-beveled chamfers, circular graining, flanks drawing, and mirror polishing. The watch comes on a light blue alligator strap, closed by a folding clasp.

The new Frederique Constant Classic Tourbillon Manufacture with mother-of-pearl dial is a limited edition of just 36 pieces. Price is set at CHF 34,995. See more on the Frederique Constant website.

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Bulgari Updates The Aluminium Chronographs In White And Blue For The Summer

For the last couple of years, Bulgari has made it a tradition to release a nice summer watch just as it’s starting to heat up here in the Northern Hemisphere. This year, they turn this focus to the Aluminium Chronograph, which now comes in white and blue, for a very distinct look that would look really nice on a European beach.

As the name of the collection name suggests, the new Bulgari Aluminium Chronograph comes in an aluminium case, which is not exactly a material we see very often. The case measures 41mm wide, 11.1mm thick and has a titanium case back and pushers. On top are the iconic rubber bezels in white or blue, matching the dial color, and engraved with the huge twin Bulgari logos. Water resistance is a sufficient 100 meters.

There are two dial options, a blue and a white. The white version gets a matte base with silvery snailed sub-dials at 3, 6, and 9 o’clock. The only color comes in the form of a red tip on the central chronograph hand. The blue version has the exact same setup, with blue snailed sub-dials and the red tipped chrono hand. Both watches have baton hour and minute hands filled with lume, applied hour markers with lume and the large applied Arabic numerals at 12 o’clock. There’s also a colour-matched date window at 4:30.

Inside, you’ll find the Bulgari Calibre B381, which is basically a Sellita SW300 movement with a Dubois-Depraz chronograph module. that means that it beats at 4Hz and has a 42 hour power reserve. The watches come on matching FKM articulated rubber strap in white or blue, with integrated aluminium links, closed with a pin buckle.

The new Bulgari Aluminium Chronograph Ref. 104234 in blue is part of the regular collection, while the Bulgari Aluminium Chronograph Ref. 104235 in white is limited to 400 pieces. Price is set at €5,300. See more on the Bulgari website — the blue one here and the white one here.

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J.N. Shapiro Infinity Series Pure Reminds Us What Put The Indie Watchmaker On The Map

Almost exactly two years ago, the rightfully revered independent watchmaker J.N. Shapiro stirred the watch world with his pretty bold claim that their new watch at the time, the Resurgence, was the first fully "made in America" watch since 1969. There were some doubts as to the complete accuracy of that claim, but there is no denying that Shapiro makes virtually all the components in the US. And they do so in the most wonderful way. But it wasn’t the Resurgence that put J.N. Shapiro on the map. It was the Infinity Series. The watch is long discontinued, but Shapiro is now bringing it back. Sort of. This is the new Infinity Series Pure.

The case of the Infinity Series Pure evokes the shape and feel of the original Infinity Series, only smaller and thinner. The steel case measures 37mm wide and 8.8mm thick, and is not made in house. It was sourced through the Alternative Horological Alliance (AHA), of which Shapiro is one of the founding partners. While the case is rather simple, with its brushed finish and thin fixed bezel, the caseback is wonderfully intricate, with an engine-turned pattern and engraved infinity symbol. Water resistance is 50 meters, which is great for a watch like this.

But the Infinity Series was always all about the dial and the guilloché patterns. And the Infinity Series Pure is exactly that. The dial is engine-turned by hand using antique rose engines and straight-line machines to produce the Infinity Weave, a basket weave within a basket weave, the pattern that Shapiro came up with all those years ago. You can get two versions of the dial, a blackened zirconium version with polished white gold hands and a frosted silver dial with rose gold hands. Both versions feature a brushed chapter ring with Arabic numerals and a small seconds at 6 o’clock.

Inside, a movement that’s supposed to reduce the cost of the overall watch. It’s the manually wound La Joux-Perret F200, which has a 90 hour power reserve. The watches come on black or brown leather straps.

The new J.N. Shapiro Infinity Series Pure is limited to 18 pieces per configuration, with orders opened now and deliveries expected in Q4 2025. The price, I assume, is going to be quite controversial — $26,000. Despite the fact that this dial pattern reminds us of the Infinity Series, that’s quite a lot of money for what are essentially quite generic pieces and a Shapiro dial and hands.

⏲️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

• For Phoenix New Times, Stephen Lemons unravels an intriguing true-crime mystery. Nineteen years ago, 46-year-old Keith King vanished from the small town of Seligman, Arizona. According to one account, he took off for a hike on May 7, 2006—and was never seen again. “It was as if he’d been beamed up by one of the extraterrestrials he believed in and sometimes believed himself to be. A missing person’s case was opened and inquiries were made, but the mystery of King’s disappearance has remained unsolved,” writes Lemons. Now, with the help of a private investigator, one of King’s adult daughters, Lindsey King, believes she knows who killed her father, and where the remains of his body can be found.

• Denver decriminalized psychedelic mushrooms in 2019, making it the first city in the US to ease restrictions on psilocybin. For 5280, Robert Sanchez reports on the latest developments in Colorado’s psilocybin movement, highlighting a team of University of Colorado Denver scientists leading one of the nation’s largest studies into the drug’s therapeutic and palliative potential. As Sanchez delved into the reporting, he found himself growing increasingly curious about the benefits of mushrooms. “The past year had easily been the worst of my life,” he writes. Could microdosing offer the mental reset he was searching for?

• For Alta Journal, Katya Apekina recounts living through the Palisades and Eaton Fires that started in California on January 7, 2025. In a piece as evocative as it is apocalyptic, she recounts the flames through her window and the toxic smoke that blanketed the area during the fire and in the immediate aftermath. As a relative newcomer to Los Angeles, she finds that the disaster has forced her to reckon with the price she’s willing to pay to live in paradise.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

3D printing is getting pretty crazy.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk