TAG Gives The Formula 1 The Gulf Treatment; A New Timex Ace Fly-Back; Revelot's Take On MOP Is Very Cool; The Bulgari Aluminium Is A Great Summer Watch; Breguet Marks 225 Years of the Tourbillon

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Revelot is a brand I should mention more. Just look at how cool those watches are. And at that price? Fantastic.

In this issue

• TAG Heuer Sends the Formula 1 Chronograph to the Gulf Pit Lane

• Timex Has A Fantastic Clean Take On The Retrograde Pilot's Chronograph

• Revelot's Take On Mother-of-Pearl Is Not Something You See Every Day

• The Bulgari Aluminium Continues To Be One Of The Best Summer Watches

• Breguet Marks 225 Years of the Tourbillon With A Bunch Of New Watches

• IAT COLUMN — CARRIE ON WATCHING: Less Safe, Less Every Day; Finding My Voice in a Watch Store

👂What’s new

1/

TAG Heuer Sends the Formula 1 Chronograph to the Gulf Pit Lane

TAG Heuer came back as Formula 1's Official Timekeeper in 2025, and we’ve expected great things from them. I’m not exactly sure that we got them, but what we did get is a slew of racing-inspired watches and I guess that is good-enough news. Now, taking on the most iconic but also the most played out racing livery, we’re getting the Formula 1 Automatic Chronograph x Gulf, which has a blue and orange colorway that matches that used by the Gulf oil corporation. TAG Heuer has a history with the livery. In 1971, Steve McQueen wore a Monaco while driving a Gulf-sponsored Porsche 917K in Le Mans. The brand made the partnership official again in 2018, and after a run of Gulf Monacos, the Formula 1 finally gets its turn.

The case is 44mm wide and 14.1mm thick, which is a lot of watch, so dropping steel for grade 2 titanium makes sense. The shape is more angular than before, with a profile TAG says was drawn from the nose of an F1 car, and the chronograph pushers have gone from round to rectangular. The finish is sandblasted with black DLC on the pushers and crown, while on top is a forged carbon bezel with a marbled texture and white tachymeter scale, plus orange accents on the crown ring and the divider between bezel and case. Water resistance is 200 meters.

The dial is where the livery shows up. Two wide vertical stripes in orange and light blue run down the right side, quoting the same setup on the older Monaco models, just on the other side. The matte black 30-minute and 12-hour counters sit at 12 and 6 with bright orange hands, matched by the lacquered central chronograph seconds. The running seconds at 9 gets a light-blue hand to match the blue chapter ring and its eight applied indices. Hands and indices are filled with white Super-LumiNova, and the date window cuts into the orange stripe.

Inside is TAG Heuer's calibre 16, which is a Sellita SW510 on the old Valjoux 7750 architecture. It beats at 4Hz with a 42-hour power reserve. Nothing exotic, but it is reliable and any watchmaker can service it. The titanium bracelet matches the case.

The new TAG Heuer Formula 1 Automatic Chronograph x Gulf is limited to 1,000 examples, available from 3 July 2026, priced at €6,300. See more on the TAG Heuer website.

2/

Timex Has A Fantastic Clean Take On The Retrograde Pilot's Chronograph

The Timex Waterbury Ace has spent the last year outshining watches that cost ten times as much. Yes, you will never confuse this with a 20k IWC, but it’s a very nice watch. For their latest release in the Waterbury Ace collection, Timex throws it back to the TX Watch Company, a short-lived premium experiment it launched in 2006. Surviving the shutdown of the sub-brand is the four-motor quartz movement with each subdial and the central handset driven by its own stepper motor. That tech survived as Intelligent Quartz, and results in the 4-and-10 retrograde layout. Love this thing. I even love it in black.

The case is stainless steel measuring 43mm across, finished in a stealthy black to match the dial. The pushers run the flyback function, which lets you zero the chronograph and restart it in one press without stopping it first. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The dial is where the cleanup happened, and it works. All the hour numerals are gone, replaced by baton markers and a double baton at 12, filled with yellow lume. You get cream indices, orange accents, and an OD green inner tachymeter bezel that matches the central hour and minute hands. The date window is gone this time too. Chronograph seconds are indicated by a fourth central hand, while the chronograph hours and minutes are handled by the upper and lower retrograde subdials. When you're not timing anything, the 24-hour subdial doubles as a second time zone.

The movement is the multi-motor Intelligent Quartz, with each retrograde subdial and the central handset on its own independent motor. It comes on a brown leather strap with gold stitching around the perimeter.

The Waterbury Ace Fly-Back Chronograph is available now from Timex for $299, and it’s not a limited edition. See more on the Timex website.

3/

Revelot's Take On Mother-of-Pearl Is Not Something You See Every Day

Revelot is a Malaysian brand, one that pops up on my radar with increasing frequency. Some time ago, they released an interesting model called Terra Nishikigoi. It was a super cool way to use mother-of-pearl, by cutting the material into the shape of fish scales, arranged in the same pattern. They were the color of koi fish, hence the name. Now we’re getting the Terrafin collection which takes that same concept and expands it into more renditions of MOP.

The case carries over from the Revelot Terra, so this is a known quantity for those who know Revelot watches: 38mm wide, 11.8mm thick with the crystal, and a lug-to-lug of 44mm. It's 316L stainless steel with brushed surfaces broken up by polished angular chamfers, and the signature modern bullhorn-style lugs give it a profile that reads as Revelot before you see the name. A screw-down exhibition case back shows off the movement through a gold fish-scale pattern, which is a nice touch. Water resistance is 100 meters, secured by a lumed screw-down angular onion crown.

The dials are the main attraction here. Revelot runs through a range of MOP techniques across the collection, from hand-tessellated Mosaic dials, where the nacre is laid in piece by piece, to precision CNC-engraved Tahitian MOP. The Parrotfish is the clearest example of how far they push it, using a coloring process that moves the dial from deep blue through turquoise into subtle green depending on light and viewing angle. Layout stays consistent: 3D lumed baton blocks with numerals at 3, 6 and 9, and a fish-scale-shaped lume marker at 12 that ties the aquatic theme together. Sword-shaped hands with brushed and polished facets, filled with Swiss Super-LumiNova, keep things legible.

Inside is the Miyota 9039, a familiar automatic running at 4Hz with a 42-hour power reserve, hacking seconds and hand-winding. It's rated -10/+30 seconds per day, which is workhorse territory, and it's known for being easy to live with and easy to service. The bracelet is Revelot's 316L microadjust design with quick-release spring bars, now fitted with screw links for adjustment instead of tools and pins.

The new Revelot Terrafin is available for pre order now. Early-bird pricing was $539 for the first 30 of each color, all of which have sold; the current launch-special price is $579, with full retail set at $639. Delivery is expected from October 2026 onward. See more on the Revelot website.

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The Bulgari Aluminium Continues To Be One Of The Best Summer Watches

The Bvlgari Aluminium has always been the odd one out in the luxury sport watch conversation. So you know I must love it. And I do. It was released in 1998, made out of aluminium with a rubber strap, when everyone else was chasing steel and gold, and the formula has aged into something pretty cool. Now, we’re getting two new versions for summer: a monochrome white and a blue limited edition. Both are good, though one is clearly the one to want.

The case is 40mm wide and 9.40mm thick, which has always been a standout feature of the Aluminium. It’s still a sports watch, but quite an elegant one, despite the sandblasted finish on the aluminium case. On top is a double-signature rubber bezel, made to look like an ancient Roman coin. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The white version goes full monochrome: an opaline dial with rhodium-plated indices and hands, matched to a white rubber strap. It's clean and a little clinical, elegant in a restrained way. The blue is the more interesting of the two, a sunburst dial in a light blue with blue hands and indices, and a central seconds hand tipped in red for a bit of contrast. That red tip is the detail that makes it, and it's the version I'd reach for.

Both have the B77 inside, Bvlgari's automatic movement beating at 4Hz with a 42-hour power reserve and giving you hours, minutes, central seconds, and a date at three o'clock. That sounds quite familiar of a movement, and that’s because it’s based on the ETA 2892-A2. The watches come on a white rubber strap with sandblasted aluminium links and a pin buckle.

Both versions of the new Bvlgari Aluminium are limited to 500 pieces and priced at €3,700. See more on the Bulgari website.

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Breguet Marks 225 Years of the Tourbillon With A Bunch Of New Watches

Two hundred and twenty-five years ago this week, Abraham-Louis Breguet got his patent for the tourbillon, a device meant to average out the positional errors that plague a balance wheel sitting in one orientation. He made about 40 in his lifetime. Breguet, the company, now makes many times that number every year, which tells you something about how a workshop curiosity became a signature. To mark the anniversary the brand has released five watches, and they have an incredible range.

Starting with the one that likely matters the most, the Classique Tourbillon 7357. It brings back the 3350, the neo-vintage classic whose movement descends from the caliber 558 that Daniel Roth worked out with Nouvelle Lemania. The current caliber 187 has been reengineered into the 187B, now with a Nivachron hairspring and a silicon pallet lever for magnetic resistance. Dimensions stay close to the original: 35mm wide, 9.2mm thick, 43mm lug-to-lug, in platinum or Breguet gold, an in-house alloy that appears somewhere between rose and yellow gold. To many people’s delight, Breguet brings back the coin-edge fluting. Inside, the bridge that used to be a single bone-shaped piece is now a double arched span, the movement beats at 2.5Hz, and the power reserve is 60 hours. The dial has a fresh guilloché called Dent de Vaulion, named after the peak overlooking Breguet's home valley and the colors match the case you chose. The price is set at $184,800 in Breguet gold and $203,300 in platinum, and the watch is part of the regular collection. See it here.

Then we have the Marine Tourbillon Équation Marchante 5887, which is heavy in every sense. The platinum case measures 43.9mm by 11.8mm with a 51.5mm lug-to-lug, and there's 118 grams of platinum involved before you account for the bracelet. The equation of time, an astronomical complication that displays the difference between our standard time and the actual position of the sun, and the tourbillon both belong to the history of marine chronometry. The dial is a sapphire plate painted by hand in translucent gradient-blue Grand Feu enamel, rendering the sky over a date and place the owner specifies, unique to each of the 25 watches. The equation hand glows yellow, mounted on a clear sapphire arm so only the little sun at its tip seems to float above everything. Driving all of it is the peripherally wound caliber 581DPE, which folds in a perpetual calendar, beats at 4Hz, and has an 80 hour power reserve, with the warship Royal Louis engraved by hand across the back. The Breguet Marine Tourbillon Équation Marchante 5887PT is limited to 25 pieces, priced at $385,900 on rubber and $489,400 on the platinum bracelet. See more here.

Third, the Sidéral 7255 is back a year after launch, now in platinum with a black aventurine Grand Feu dial. The Empire case remains unchanged, still measuring 38mm by 10.2mm with a 47.6mm lug-to-lug. The caliber 187M1 suspends its cage inside a sapphire window, linked to a sapphire disc that turns on a geared outer ring, so the whole assembly looks unsupported. It beats at 2.5Hz, has a 50 hour power reserve, and the dial lettering is now applied in platinum. The Classique Tourbillon Sidéral 7255PT is limited to 50 numbered pieces, priced at $294,400. See it here.

Last, we have the Tradition Tourbillon 7047, the familiar fusée-and-chain watch, now executed in blue. The mechanism is nearly extinct, a chain-and-cone arrangement that delivers constant force by keeping the mainspring's output even from full wind to empty. This is the most extravagant 7047 to date: a Bleu de France ALD coating on the bridges and the chain, a sandblasted mainplate in glacier blue, and a Grand Feu enamel dial in the same family. The chain has 232 links and 77 of them get the blue treatment, with a blue spinel set in the tourbillon bar. It's the thickest of the four by a margin, 41mm across and 16mm tall with a 50.5mm lug-to-lug, much of that height swallowed by a tall box sapphire. The caliber 569 beats at 2.5Hz with a 55-hour reserve. The Breguet Tradition Tourbillon 7047PT will be made in 25 numbered and hand-engraved pieces, priced at $325,200. See more on the Breguet website.

IAT COLUMN — CARRIE ON WATCHING: Less Safe, Less Every Day; Finding My Voice in a Watch Store

Carrie Conta is a NY-based watch enthusiast at the start of her watch journey and she will be documenting her path of building a watch collection as a woman in her monthly column on It’s About Time. You can follow her on Instagram.

Diving into the watch world has felt akin to being Charlie wandering into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Sure, there is a general awareness of what you’re getting into; Charlie didn’t walk in completely in the dark. Yet, when compared to the others around him, all well-versed in their niches and very aware of what they wanted, it was a bit daunting.

I know the watch world isn’t quite like Willy Wonka’s factory. For one, I can’t imagine anyone venturing into a store and turning into a pistachio after coveting the Breitling Premier B09 Chronograph 40 or witnessing geese laying golden wristbands. For another, like diving into any new hobby with decades, even centuries, of history and so many options to consider, there is a wider network of experts and fellow enthusiasts willing to give their thoughts with the understanding that your selections will be exactly that—yours. Deeply personal, reflective of who you are and how you want to express yourself, yours.

In dissecting what this meant, I went back to the roots of what inspired this journey and thought of the two key factors that would keep me down this yellow brick road. (Another pop culture reference, I know). Affordability—or, accessibility—for a more everyday watch but, more so, style.

More accurately, personality.

Constellations and pieces devoted to particular periods were one thing, and all continued to speak to me, and would prove to be springboards into a larger leap. This leap required me to go out on my own and venture to various stores to just browse and really get a feel of what was out there.

I began my day at OMEGA where I started with, to the surprise of no one, the Constellation collection. Truly, in looking for an everyday watch, this series immediately struck me as a set I could see myself wearing day in, day out. Though I’m not usually one for too many jewels, the diamonds along the bezel didn’t feel overwhelming and still allowed the faces to shine, complementing more than overtaking. There are also options without the bezel with just as much of a unique touch that would still be feasible as a constant fixture, such as the one with a mother-of-pearl dial which is subtle while still gorgeous.

Once I set my eyes on the purple dial, something about that emboldened me to embrace more of what spoke to me. I am curious what moment for any of you occurred where you branched out of your comfort zone and began to look more into what did not have to be every day but more highlighted the untold parts of you.

I was guided quite expertly by the sales representative who discussed OMEGA’s Co-Axial Master Chronometer Calibre 8701, but my main focus was to narrow down preferences before getting further down the rabbit hole and into the land of mechanics. That was a journey for a different day.

Peeling myself away from the Constellation collection, I moved to the Seamaster, specifically the Aqua Terra with the lacquered turquoise dial. In terms of affordability for someone just getting into this universe, it hit at a nice range without sacrificing quality. Even the black and silver dials within this collection stood out more than I expected, chic and, pun not intended, timeless.

It’s so pleasing to see how much women’s and unisex watches have truly begun to embrace so many options to fit anyone. Ten years ago, I would not have imagined the diversity in color and styles that I have been introduced to recently. The rich tones, shapes, gem tones, and typography truly feel more inclusive and so welcoming to anyone unsure of going down this path. We are also seeing women’s watches embrace sportier looks, as we did with the Seamaster series. Brands such as Cartier, Tissot, IWC Schaffhausen, and so many more are expanding into this area.

I moved on from OMEGA to continue my exploration, where there were more lessons to learn and preferences to pin down. A few blocks away, I explored the Wempe showroom where I explored their collection as well as many other brands on display.

Within a few minutes of scanning the cases, the very kind sales representative funnily told me, “You look like you like color.” What, in my bright yellow blazer and floral dress? I know this is a watch store, but you didn’t have to clock me that fast.

He wasn’t wrong.

So many got my attention, but I would be lying if I said the Glashütte Lady Serenade set did not immediately catch my eye, specifically the Serenade Luna in “purple velvet”. I still gravitated to watches in deep blues or teals and found myself continually attracted to anything mother-of-pearl or designed with the night sky in mind. The brilliant purple of this watch felt like I was really finding something more uniquely me. A less “safe” option. Less “every day”.

It was this watch and those before it that really allowed me to feel like I was finding something my own. I knew more of what to look for and no longer felt like such an outsider. There are still so many factors to introduce myself to and people to pick the minds of, yet now I am walking through the gates with an idea in mind and less overwhelm. The mechanics and distinct details will come soon enough. The detail I found now was my own voice.

⏲️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

• A century ago, three brothers stopped a mail train near the California-Oregon border. They killed four men, and seemingly left with very little. Their attack kicked off what was, at the time, the nation’s largest manhunt. It also helped to establish the field of criminal forensics. And while you could learn about the DeAutremont brothers through songs about their violence, Julian Smith’s account, for Alta Journal, shouldn’t be missed.

• A boy from a farming town leaves home to chase a soccer dream in Buenos Aires, only to enter a hidden system where ambition, poverty, and exploitation collide. As one house on Gallardo Street exposes the machinery beneath Argentina’s beloved sport, the story asks how many children must be sacrificed before anyone truly looks away?

• Drums echo across a West Texas town where football is everything, and four golden boys are untouchable—until a night of inexplicable violence shatters that illusion. As outrage spreads far beyond Iraan’s dusty borders, the story becomes less about one small-town scandal than about innocence lost, mob fury, and how quickly the internet can turn local cruelty into a national reckoning.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

I’m in a bit of a music mood over the past few days, but this is really good.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk