Studio Underd0g Updates The 02Series; Seiko's Silk Dials In A New 38mm Case Presage Classic; The Incredible Anoma A1 Prehistoric; Zenith Doubles Down On The Defy Extreme; VC Shrinks The Overseas to 34.5mm

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. If you looked at the newsletter yesterday, you might have noticed that it was a complete mess. Not to worry, that was a brief lapse, we’re back to our standard level today.

In this issue

• Studio Underd0g Updates The 02Series With Sunburst Dials And A Longer-Running Movement

• Seiko Adds Tomioka Silk Dials And A New 38mm Case To The Presage Classic Series

• The Anoma A1 Prehistoric Gets An Absolutely Incredible Hand-Chiseled Case

• Zenith Doubles Down On The Defy Extreme With Lapis Lazuli And Ultraviolet

• Vacheron Constantin Shrinks The Overseas to 34.5mm In Rose Gold And Steel

• IAT REVEIW: The Atelier Wen Perception V3 Is The Integrated Sports Watch That Does Everything Differently

👂What’s new

1/

Studio Underd0g Updates The 02Series With Sunburst Dials And A Longer-Running Movement

Studio Underd0g's 02Series was one of the more charming takes on the Dirty Dozen field watch when it launched three years ago, and it's back now in a second generation. Richard Benc has spent that time acquiring the workshop where the watches are assembled, renamed The D0ghouse, and the changes here reflect a brand growing up without losing its sense of humor. The lineup keeps two fully lumed dials from the original run and swaps the old black and white versions for two new sunburst options.

The steel case grows very slightly to 37.5mm wide and drops to 11.5mm thick, half a millimeter slimmer than before, with the 2.1mm double domed sapphire crystal included in that number. The lug-to-lug remains at 46mm. Also remaining is the polished bezel, circular-brushed lugs, and drilled lug holes that make strap swaps easy and lean into the field-watch character. Water resistance is 100 meters, and the steel case back has an embossed jellyfish.

There are four dials. The cherry Red L0lly and purple Nightshade use a sunburst base beneath a transparent sapphire top layer, the same layered trick the brand first showed on its Fears collaboration. Nightshade adds a red minute track and red outlines around the luminous numerals. The returning Pink Lem0nade and Steffany Blue skip the sunburst for seven layers of Super-LumiNova glowing under the crystal. All four have contrasting printing and note that they're assembled in Great Britain.

Inside is Sellita's new hand-wound SW200-2 M Power+, the successor to the SW210-1 in the first generation. Recently, Sellita introduced the Power+ update to SW200 series, updating the power reserve from the slightly archaic 42 hours, up to a more modern 63 hours. No change to the 4Hz beat rate. The watches come on calfskin straps, with a lug width of 18mm.

The second-gen 02Series is available now on Studio Underd0g's website and by appointment at The D0ghouse, priced at €950. That's €100 more than the original, which given the slimmer case and the much better movement is easy to justify. See more on the Studio Underd0g website.

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Seiko Adds Tomioka Silk Dials And A New 38mm Case To The Presage Classic Series

Seiko's Presage Classic Series has always been a dial-first watch. Which is not what Seiko usually does. They are best known for their case sizes. Except on the Presage Classic Series, which comes with really fantastic dials. Seiko has been building this series for years, and there’s plenty of examples how well they do it. The one big complaint, for many years, has been the 40.2mm case size. Which is why they introduced a 36mm case. Then people complained that was too small. So now we’re getting a new case, one that measures 38mm, still with the stamped, guilloché-like pattern dials, now inspired by Tomioka silk, one of Japan's finer varieties of the material.

The four models introduce a 38mm case, which is 12.9mm thick, has a water resistance of 100 meters, and every they have a see-through screwed caseback. Three use stainless steel with Seiko's super-hard coating; while the limited HCC008 has steel with pink-gold-coloured plating, and it looks decent, thanks to a slightly matte finish.

The dials are always the main attraction on Presage Classic watches. The limited HCC008 is based on a rare silk from Gunma Prefecture and finished with a pearl-like coating that adds a shimmer. The three regular-production models keep it cleaner: HCC001 in shironeri white, HCC002 in wakatake-iro green, and HCC003 in sakura-iro pink. That pink might be interesting to see up close.

All four have Seiko's in-house calibre 6R51, beating at 3Hz with a 72-hour power reserve. HCC001 and HCC002 come on a super-hard-coated steel bracelet with a push-button deployant. HCC003 and HCC008 get dark brown leather on a three-fold clasp, sourced from Leather Working Group-certified tanneries.

The watches go on sale from July 2026. The HCC008 is limited to 2,000 pieces at €1,200; the HCC001 and HCC002 are €1,050, and the HCC003 is €1,030. See more on the Seiko website.

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The Anoma A1 Prehistoric Gets An Absolutely Incredible Hand-Chiseled Case

Anoma has only been around since 2024, but the A1 has already earned a reputation as one of the more interesting shaped watches to come out of the recent shaped watches wave. The rounded triangle, inspired by a table designed by French architect Charlotte Perriand, has so far come in something like four or five colors, two of which are part of the regular collection. Now, however, we’re getting something extremely special. This is the A1 Prehistoric, which gets an intricate hand-hammered finish that’s draws its inspiration from the primitive artefacts that founder Matteo Violet Vianello saw at Constantin Brancusi exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

The case keeps the familiar A1 dimensions, 39mm by 38mm and 9.45mm thick, with 50 meters of water resistance. The triangular profile, the missing lugs, and the way the lower section curves inward all conspire to make it wear closer to a 37mm watch, and the recessed crown, hidden from the front and reached from the back, keeps the shape completely clean. What changes here is the skin. Each 316L steel case is hand-chiselled by French engraver Steven Brunel over roughly five hours, leaving uneven planes, cuts, and scars across the metal. No two will look the same.

The dial matches the case sensationally. Around 600 lines are cut by hand into a brass base to form a sunburst, then finished in deep anthracite, giving the dial a very matte look. Curved leaf-shaped hands remain unchanged.

Inside is the Sellita SW100, an automatic beating at 4Hz, with about 42 hours of power reserve. The watch comes on a grey Italian leather strap closed with a pin buckle finished to match the case.

The Anoma A1 Prehistoric goes on sale today, 8 July 2026, at 2PM BST. With it being limited to 100 pieces and priced at a pretty reasonable £2,900, and this newsletter coming out around the time of release, there’s a pretty big chance it will sell out as you’re reading this. Deliveries are scheduled for October. See more on the Anoma website.

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Zenith Doubles Down On The Defy Extreme With Lapis Lazuli And Ultraviolet

The Defy Extreme has never pretended to be subtle, and Zenith clearly likes it that way. The oversized architectural case, the openworked dial, the central chronograph hand sweeping a full rotation every second, the colors. Oh the colors. They had the more subtle Pantone and Chroma that no one would call subtle, until you see the Mirror and Jungle editions. Now, building on that tradition, we get the Defy Extreme Lapis Lazuli II and Ultraviolet.

The Lapis Lazuli II follows the steel-and-yellow-gold version from late last year, but swaps materials. The 45mm case is now forged carbon and titanium, 15.4mm thick with a 51mm lug-to-lug. The matte carbon surfaces drink up and keep the chunky watch pretty light. Water resistance is 200 meters. The Ultraviolet has the same stats, but uses microblasted titanium instead of carbon.

The dials are even more different than the cases. Lapis Lazuli II uses real lapis for the chronograph counters, and because every stone is unique, no two watches are the same. Yellow gold-plated markers and faceted hands, both lumed, match the flecks of pyrite in the lapis. The Ultraviolet goes a bit wilder with violet-tinted sapphire counters that are semi-transparent, letting you see straight down into the movement.

Both watches have the El Primero 9004 with its dual-escapement layout. The timekeeping part of the watch beats at Zenith's traditional 5Hz (36,000vph), while a second independent escapement dedicated to the chronograph runs at a genuinely wild 50Hz (360,000vph), which is what lets the watch measure to 1/100th of a second. You get fifty hours of power reserve for timekeeping, about 50 minutes for the chronograph, with small seconds at 9, a 30-minute counter at 3, a 60-second counter at 6 and the power reserve at 12. The Ultraviolet's star rotor is finished in matching violet. The Lapis Lazuli II comes on black rubber strap with a spare black Velcro strap, while the Ultraviolet comes on violet rubber with a microblasted titanium bracelet and a Velcro strap as well.

The Zenith Defy Extreme Lapis Lazuli II is limited to 25 pieced at €36,800. The non-limited Defy Extreme Ultraviolet is set at €20,200. See more on the Zenith website.

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Vacheron Constantin Shrinks The Overseas to 34.5mm In Rose Gold And Steel

The Overseas has been the cornerstone of Vacheron Constantine for decades, and since they’re building the base of the business on this great looking sports watch, it doesn’t hurt to offer them in a variety of sizes. Back in 2023, they introduced the 34.5mm version, a unisex watch that fits smaller wrists. Now, the same case size gets a new rose gold and steel variant with some new dials.

The case keeps the three-tiered construction that gives the Overseas its depth: a tonneau base, a circular plinth, and the signature six-sided bezel on top. At 34.5mm wide and 9.3mm thick, it's wonderfully compact. The bezel is polished, the plinth has a circular satin brush, and the case tops and bracelet get a vertical satin brush with brightly polished sides. Water resistance is 150 meters.

The case materials and dials give these two watches completely different personalities. The rose gold model goes full monochrome with a lacquered golden dial, sunburst center, a softly grained peripheral minutes track, and applied pink gold markers filled with blue-emission Super-LumiNova. The steel is much less subtle: a deep-red lacquered dial with a steel ring dividing the sunburst center from the minutes track. Both versions have a date at three o'clock.

Inside both is the in-house automatic calibre 1088/1, a slim 144-part movement running at 4Hz with a 40-hour power reserve and a soft-iron ring for anti-magnetic protection. The 22k gold rotor is decorated with a compass rose and visible through the sapphire caseback. The steel model gets a steel bracelet plus red alligator and red rubber straps, the gold model a gold bracelet with white alligator and white textured rubber.

The steel Overseas is priced at €26,800, while the rose gold is €60,000. See the steel here and the gold here.

IAT REVEIW: The Atelier Wen Perception V3 Is The Integrated Sports Watch That Does Everything Differently

There is a restaurant in Chengdu that has no menu.

You sit down, a pot of water starts boiling at your table before you even take your coat off, and within five minutes a succession of plates begins arriving. Nobody asked what you wanted. Nobody consulted your preferences. The kitchen decides, and you eat what they put in front of you. It's mala hot pot — the Sichuan peppercorn kind that doesn't just burn your mouth but numbs it completely, turns your lips electric, makes your tongue feel like it's been wrapped in velvet and then hit with a taser. You eat more than you planned. You order more beef, then more tripe, then more of whatever that translucent thing was that you still can't identify. After two hours you sit back in your chair in a state that isn't quite pain and isn't quite pleasure but is somewhere in the interesting territory between the two.

That, more or less, is what it feels like to spend time with the Atelier Wen Perception V3 in Yun Bamboo Green.

I need to back up. When Atelier Wen gave the Perception V3 for review, my first honest reaction was mild surprise at how far they'd come. The Perception is the watch that put them on the map, their core product, the one that launched a thousand threads and convinced a generation of collectors that a watch brand built around Chinese aesthetics and made with Chinese manufacturing expertise could produce something desirable rather than merely interesting from an anthropological standpoint. The V1 was good. The V2 was better. But both of these had their fair share of downsides. The V3 is the one that finally shuts down all remaining skepticism.

The Yun Bamboo Green is one of the three V3 dial options, joining the returning Ice-Blue Piao and Salmon Xia. Green dials can go wrong in about a hundred different ways, most of them involving either too much saturation (the "this watch is trying to be a Rolex Submariner" problem) or not enough depth (the "this watch cost $350 and looks like it" problem). The Yun Bamboo avoids both failure modes so completely that I spent most of the first day just tilting it at different angles under different light sources.

This is just part of the review. To read the whole thing and see some pictures, click here.

⏲️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

• Support for the death penalty is at its lowest in 50 years. And yet, in Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis is overseeing a surge in executions “with no obvious overarching logic,” his rationale shielded by executive privilege. Pamela Colloff counters his silence with a vigilant chorus of execution opponents, a haunted former warden, and a Catholic priest whose ministry increasingly requires him to prepare others for sudden death. Alec Soth’s accompanying photos work in tandem with Colloff’s reporting to capture the fuller blast radius of capital punishment.

• For The Ringer, Alan Siegel pays tribute to the Costco hot dog, still $1.50 at the food court, a price that’s held steady since the ’80s and is unlikely to increase. Siegel digs into why Costco hasn’t changed the deal, and why it still works. This is a festive (if belated) Fourth of July read, and a welcome addition to a growing collection of editors’ picks about Costco, America’s beloved big-box, membership-only warehouse club.

• Pop music critic Amanda Petrusich lost her husband suddenly in 2022. For The New Yorker, she attempts to outline the shapes of her grief and recounts the one thing that helped her move forward: E.M.D.R. (eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing) therapy, which involves repeatedly reliving the events of the trauma in order to become desensitized to it.

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