Serica Shrinks Down Their Field Watch To 35mm And It’s Incredibly Cool; New Colors For The Ressence Type 7; A Malachite Kurono Tokyo; The New Arcange Selenograph; An Aventurine Armin Strom GMT Resonance

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. I’m not that crazy over sub 37mm watches, so you can imagine my surprise when I fell hard for the new 35mm Serica. I think I actually might have to buy this one.

In this issue

• Serica Shrinks Down Their Field Watch To 35mm And It’s An Incredibly Cool Change

• Ressence Gives Us Two New Colors Of The Type 7: Cactus And Black

• Kurono Tokyo Goes Green With Malachite-Dialed 2026 Special Projects

• The Arcange Selenograph Crams A Triple Calendar Into A Compact Case At A Great Price

• Armin Strom's Dual Time GMT Resonance Gets An Aventurine Dial

👂What’s new

1/

Serica Shrinks Down Their Field Watch To 35mm And It’s An Incredibly Cool Change

The conventional wisdom that a field watch needs bulk to have presence has always been a bit lazy, the easy way to do it. Good for us, then, that Serica isn’t lazy and doesn’t do things the easy way. The French brand, founded by Jérôme Burgert and Gabriel Vachette, has always had a knack for creating vintage-inspired, but thoroughly modern watches. Almost as if they were developed in a parallel dimension. Case in point, this new 7505 collection. Remember when I told you that my favorite watch I saw at Watches and Wonders was under embargo? Well, it was this watch, which came as a complete surprise to me. I have huge wrists and I generally prefer larger watches. I don’t think that smaller watches look bad on me — they look good on everyone — I’m just more comfortable seeing a chunk of a watch on my wrist. So you have to believe me when I say: the Serica 7505 is so good that it makes me want to buy a 35mm wide watch.

Serica watches are also extremely well thought through. As is evident by this case. It looks like their existing field-watch connection, but only at a casual glance. The case measures 35mm wide and 9.6mm thick with the double-domed sapphire crystal included. The lugs are super-short and wonderfully curved, and on top is a flat chunky stepped bezel with a vertically brushed flat surface and polished sides, with four half-spheres denoting the four cardinal positions. Out back is a solid steel caseback, the crown screws down and you can get 200 meters of water resistance.

Then we have the dials, and Serica, as good as they are making cases, is really good at making dials. They are all unsigned and all have an enamel-like glossy finish. Two are new: a "minute critical" military layout in black or olive green, with painted luminous markers built for immediate readability. The third is carried over from the 6190 Tuxedo — a two-tone beige and black arrangement with hand-applied lume. Broad-arrow hands in brushed steel run across all three, loaded with SLN. I particularly like that none of them carry a brand logo; it suits the instrument-first attitude.

Inside is the Soprod M100, a COSC-certified automatic, running at 4Hz with around 42 hours of power reserve. Not to be ignored, the bracelet is completely redesigned. It might look like a regular Bonklip-style bracelet, but this one gets curved end-pieces, it’s heavily tapered and features a new Safe-Lock clasp which finally fixes pretty much any complaint you could have had about previous versions that did open occasionally.

The Serica 7505 Field Chronometer is available now as a permanent collection piece, priced at €1,090 for the minute critical dials and €1,190 for the tuxedo. I swear, this could easily fit on a wrist of an advisor getting off a helicopter somewhere northeast of Hanoi just before all hell is going to break loose in Vietnam. I want one. See more on the Serica website.

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Ressence Gives Us Two New Colors Of The Type 7: Cactus And Black

Ressence turned 15 last year, and the Type 7 was their gift to themselves — the first watch they've made with an integrated bracelet, the first with a GMT function, and arguably the most wearable thing to come out of Benoît Mintiens' atelier in Brussels. Two new colorways now join the original Night Blue and the limited XV Aquamarine: Black and Cactus.

The case is 41mm wide and 14mm thick, machined from Grade 5 titanium with a glass-pearled finish that gives the surface a matte, almost chalky texture. Ressence splits the case into two sealed chambers, one for the oil-filled display module, one for the movement, connected by a magnetic transmission. There's no crown; winding and setting happen through the caseback via the Ressence Compression Lock System. Both new editions come with the integrated titanium bracelet and a matching rubber strap. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The Black version looks very familiar, as we’ve seen this depth from the Type 5. Oil filling deepens the dial to a degree that approaches absolute black, and the white indications pop against it with near-digital clarity. The Cactus is an interesting color — a green tone selected specifically to work with the warm undertone of Grade 5 titanium. A fixed ceramic bezel in matching black or green finishes each case.

Under the oil is Ressence's ROCS 7 module, driven by a modified ETA automatic base. The entire dial rotates, carrying orbital sub-displays for the hours, the GMT (on a 24-hour sub-dial), and a runner that completes one revolution every 120 seconds and doubles as a shock absorber indicator. There's also an oil temperature display integrated into the hour subdial via a colour-coded scale — the kind of detail that only makes sense once you understand the watch and makes perfect sense after that. The movement beats at 28,800vph with a 36-hour power reserve, and a compensating bellows system handles pressure changes as the oil expands and contracts.

The Type 7 Black and Cactus are both available now, priced at CHF 36,000 before taxes. See more on the Ressence website.

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Kurono Tokyo Goes Green With Malachite-Dialed 2026 Special Projects

Kurono Tokyo's Special Projects line has always operated almost as a separate division from the rest of the catalog. While the main collection gives you classic Japanese dress sensibility at prices that still feel slightly surprising, the Special Projects watches are where Hajime Asaoka gets to play with materials and ideas that wouldn't survive the brand's usual restraint. Earlier this year that meant meteorite — the Inseki, with its cosmic-patterned dial. Now it's malachite. OK, sure, it’s not revolutionary, but it is a departure from what they usually do.

The case is polished steel, 37mm wide, with the familiar box-shaped sapphire crystal sitting proud above the dial. Those who know the brand will recognize the silhouette immediately — this is the same compact, slightly retro-formal shape that from many collections before it. A solid caseback completes the package. Water resistance is 30 meters, which could and should be bumped up to at least 50 meters.

The central portion of the new dial is a slab of genuine malachite. Its characteristic banding shifts from deep forest green to near-emerald depending on where the light catches it. Supposedly, Asaoka personally inspects every stone for consistency, and each approved dial receives his vermillion seal. Around that center sits a convex brass chapter ring, coloured with a hand-mixed rokushō pigment (a copper-derived verdigris green, chosen specifically for its material reference to malachite), and indexed with Kanji Zodiac characters used historically in East Asia to mark time and direction.

Inside, the Miyota calibre 90S5, a time-only automatic beating at 28,800vph with approximately 40 hours of power reserve. The watch ships on a black calfskin leather strap with a steel pin buckle.

The Kurono Tokyo 2026 Special Projects Malachite is priced at $1,850, excluding taxes and import duties, and goes on sale May 28, 2026, with two order windows at 11 AM and 11 PM JST. Purchases are limited to one per customer, and Kurono states that all orders placed within either window will be fulfilled. See more on the Kurono Tokyo website.

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The Arcange Selenograph Crams A Triple Calendar Into A Compact Case At A Great Price

I am extremely wary of writing about watches that are raising money on Kickstarter. The horror stories I’ve heard about unfulfilled campaigns are just too wild to lend what little respect I might have behind me. If you were to get a watch from Kickstarter after learning about it from this newsletter and it turned out to be a scam, I would feel very guilty. I know because it happened to me once. However, there are exceptions to this wariness, and that mostly happens where an already established brand uses Kickstarter to launch a new model. I won’t say that the French brand Arcange is a household brand, but they successfully sold a couple of collections funded through Kickstarter already, so I assume it’s safe to say this new Selenograph will work out as well. And I hope it does — a 38.5mm with a triple calendar and a true moon phase priced this well is a watch I would like to own.

The case is 38.5mm wide, 11.5mm thick, and 45.5mm lug-to-lug, which is actually compact given everything going on inside. The profile is rounded and the lugs flare outward with a kind of elegance you rarely see at this tier. Finishing includes a brushed mid-case with a mirror-polished bezel and polished chamfers along the case flanks. Four recessed pushers are worked into the case at the cardinal corners for setting the various calendar displays, and they're polished. The double-domed box sapphire crystal comes with five layers of AR coating. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The five dial variants are available at launch: CM01 Classic in cream, CM02 Ice Blue, CM03 Eclipse in black, CM04 Syros Blue in two-tone blue, and CM05 Salmon. All of them share the same vertical CNC-machined wave texture and the same layout. A railroad minute track at the perimeter, 31 date numerals on a double-ringed chapter ring just inside, applied polished hour markers with Arabic numerals at the cardinal points and tooth-shaped ones between them. Two apertures above the pinion show day left, month right, with a classically styled moon phase at six. The pointer date hand is leaf-shaped with a crescent-tipped end.

The movement is a Miyota 9015 modified with a module on top for the triple calendar and moon phase functions. The 9015 beats at 4Hz with 42 hours of power reserve. The watches come on a full-grain calf leather straps in four colors with quick-release functionality.

The Arcange Selenograph CM02 Ice Blue launches on Kickstarter on May 29, 2026, at €571, with the campaign running through June 6. Full retail afterward is €845€. See more on the Arcange website.

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Armin Strom's Dual Time GMT Resonance Gets An Aventurine Dial

The Dual Time GMT Resonance from Armin Strom is a very cool watch. And like a lot of these high-horology watches that include a ton of creative watchmaking and design onto a wrist, it came in a pretty substantial case. That’s was the case until two years ago, when they redesigned the case to a very, very wearable option. Now, we’re getting an Aventurine version of this beautiful watch.

The stainless steel case case is 39mm wide, just over 9mm thick, with the characteristic asymmetric crown placement — two crowns at 4 and 8 o'clock for independent time zone setting — and the signature lip at 6. Lug-to-lug sits at 44.5mm. Sapphire crystals sit front and back. The thin profile is wildly impressive for a movement this architecturally complex, and i love it when haute horology comes in a steel case. This is a winner for me. Heck, you even get 50 meters of water resistance.

The new dials — there are two of them, one for each time zone — come in aventurine, the deep blue glass-mineral full of suspended metallic inclusions that shift and scatter light as the watch moves. Black azurage chapter rings frame each display, rose gold-toned hands and applied indices sit over the aventurine surface, and day/night indicators are integrated into both sub-dials. The rest of the display is dedicated to a rose gold-coloured mainplate, which is a nice contrast, and the resonance mechanism.

Calibre ARF22 is in-house, beats at 3.5Hz, and delivers 42 hours of power reserve. The resonance mechanism uses a clutch spring rather than the more traditional direct coupling between balance wheels, which Armin Strom argues makes it less sensitive to disruption. Finishing is detailed: hand-bevelled bridges, black polishing, perlage and circular graining on the dial side, Côtes de Genève on the reverse. The watch ships on a matte grey alligator strap with a steel pin buckle.

The Armin Strom Dual Time GMT Resonance Aventurine is limited to 10 pieces, priced at CHF 105,000. See more on the Armin Strom 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

• On a surface swept by sanctions and propaganda, a forgotten 1989 defense of apartheid reveals how white South Africa tried to sell itself as civilization under siege. From there, the argument widens into a darker pattern: the stories nations tell to justify ethnic power, and the unnerving echoes that still linger. But how far can that comparison really go?

• In a world where masculinity can be measured in nanomoles, one man’s tiredness becomes a doorway into a booming industry built on fear, hope, and a vial of testosterone. As private clinics and online ads blur the line between medicine and marketing, the question keeps tightening: who really needs treatment, and who is being sold a story?

• At a mansion on San Francisco’s Billionaires Row, a fundraiser quietly sealed Silicon Valley’s turn toward MAGA, and David Sacks became the face of a new alliance built on money, power, and self-interest. The story tracks how a libertarian investor who once dismissed Trump ended up shaping his technology agenda — but can that bargain hold without breaking something bigger?

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

Jean-Marie Schaller, the owner and creative force behind Louis Moinet, died a couple of days ago. This is a great video tribute to one of the more colorful and important figures in the industry.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk