The Citizen Gets A Shibori White Dial; Hanhart's Matte Black Aquasphere; Union Glashütte Liveries The Averin; Lebois & Co's Incredible Textured Dials; Andersen Genève Communication 45 In Platinum

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. That Lebois & Co's stroopwafel dial brought me back to my Amsterdam days… Pure nostalgia

In this issue

• The Citizen Continues 50th-Anniversary Celebration With An Eco-Drive In Shibori White

• Hanhart Plunges The Aquasphere Into Darkness With A Matte Black Dial

• Union Glashütte Reaches Back To Legendary German Liveries For The Sachsen Classic, Now In An Averin

• Lebois & Co's New Heritage Atelier Comes With Two Incredible Textured Dials

• Andersen Genève Cools Down the Communication 45 With A Platinum Case

👂What’s new

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The Citizen Continues 50th-Anniversary Celebration With An Eco-Drive In Shibori White

Citizen has been marking 50 years of Eco-Drive with a run of anniversary models under The Citizen line, their premium line with the most unfortunate name, and the AQ4090-08A is the latest of bunch. Where the earlier releases leaned sporty on integrated titanium bracelets, this one goes for a more dressy appearance. While the size doesn’t help that dress appearance the dial does play well in the space. It draws on pole-wrap shibori, a Japanese resist-dyeing technique.

The case is 40mm wide and 12.20mm thick in Citizen's Super Titanium, the brand's proprietary alloy that supposed to be more scratch resistant. Even more scratch resistance is done with a Duratect Platinum treatment that also results in a brighter finish, with a sapphire crystal over the dial. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The shibori-inspired texture and pattern of the dial is meant to represent drifting mist, and it shifts as the light moves across it. Blue accents and silver applied markers keep it legible, the hands and markers are lumed, and the textured surface still lets enough light through to feed the cell underneath.

Inside is Citizen's Caliber A060, one of the top Eco-Drive movements, rated to an absurd ±5 seconds per year with a perpetual calendar that sorts out month lengths and leap years on its own. Fully charged, it holds up to 18 months in power-save mode, so battery changes are a non-issue. These The Citizen watches usually come on titanium bracelets, but this one gets a black crocodile strap with a folding clasp.

The Citizen AQ4090-08A is available now, limited to 200 pieces, priced at $2,995. See more on the Citizen website.

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Hanhart Plunges The Aquasphere Into Darkness With A Matte Black Dial

Hanhart built its reputation on pilot's watches, so the Aquasphere that was released in 2024 was a bit of a surprise. But the best kind of surprise. This new Matte Black version keeps everything intact and just changes the mood, trading the original's blue for a black and white scheme. It's the restrained take on a watch that already had a strong identity.

The stainless steel case is 42mm wide, 12.95mm thick and 49mm lug-to-lug, unchanged from the other Aquasphere models. Satin-brushed, polished and matte surfaces alternate across the case, which keeps a fairly plain shape from looking flat. The black bezel turns unidirectionally through 60 clicks and has a black ceramic insert with Hanhart's stencil numerals and a red marker at 12. Water resistance is 300 meters, with a guarded screw-down crown, a helium escape valve at 10 o'clock, and a caseback engraved with an underwater scene.

The dial is now matte black with a silver rehaut surrounding it. Applied markers, Arabic numerals at 12, and broad hands are all filled with Super-LumiNova C1, and the central seconds hand gets a red tip, as you would expect from a Hanhart.

Inside is either a Sellita SW200-1 or a Soprod P024 depending on the batch, both running at 4 Hz with hacking seconds and at least 38 hours of reserve. Hanhart regulates every movement in Gütenbach to 0/+8 seconds per day across six positions, which is a tighter spec than the price suggests. Three wearing options are available: a black elastic Hook Strap, an FKM rubber strap with a folding clasp, or a steel bracelet with tool-free micro-adjustment and quick-release spring bars.

The Hanhart Aquasphere Matte Black is available now at €1,540 on the Hook Strap, €1,640 on rubber and €1,740 on the bracelet. See more on the Hanhart website.

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Union Glashütte Reaches Back To Legendary German Liveries For The Sachsen Classic, Now In An Averin

Every year Union Glashütte releases a limited edition for the Sachsen Classic, the historic car rally it sponsors, and every year that watch has been the retro Noramis Chronograph. For the 23rd running of the rally, on 14 and 15 August 2026, the brand has switched horses. The tribute now goes to the Averin Chronograph, and given that watch's angular square case and dashboard-style dial, the motorsport connection is even stronger than on the round Noramis.

The steel case remains unchanged from the standard Averin: 41mm by 41mm, a substantial 15.45mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 49.47mm. Brushed and polished surfaces play off the sharp geometry, and the domed box-style sapphire follows the square footprint for a very retro and somewhat familiar look. The crown sits between two rectangular pushers, there's a sapphire caseback, and water resistance is 100 meters.

The dial is the novelty here. It's a white embossed tile pattern crossed with bold stripes in signal red, Nardo grey and Daytona grey, pulled from historic racing liveries. The square subregisters, small seconds at 9 o'clock and a 30-minute counter at 3 o'clock, keep the instrument-panel logic going, and the central chronograph seconds hand is lacquered bright red. Nickel-plated hour and minute hands get Super-LumiNova inserts, and the date sits at 6 o'clock.

Inside is the calibre UNG-27.S2, Union Glashütte's automatic chronograph built on the Valjoux 7750. This one is the cam-operated version with a silicon balance spring and stop-seconds, running at 4Hz with a power reserve of at least 65 hours. Two straps come in the box, both on a quick-change system: a bright red rubber strap and a grey perforated leather racing strap with red lining.

The Averin Chronograph Sachsen Classic 2026 is limited to 350 numbered pieces, priced at EUR 3,700. See more on the Union Glashütte website.

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Lebois & Co's New Heritage Atelier Comes With Two Incredible Textured Dials

Lebois & Co is certainly not a household name at this point, and since it’s often overlooked, you can find some pretty amazing surpirses from the brand. For example, this new Heritage Atelier collection which comes with two of the best dials at this price point. And of course they are amazing… they are made in collaboration with the legends at GT Cadrans, one finished in a Clous de Paris pattern and the other made to look like a Dutch stroopwafel. Why don’t we have more stroopwafel dials? They’re so fun.

The 316L stainless steel case that the two models share measures 37.80mm wide and 10.50mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 45.50mm. Polished and brushed surfaces, a double-domed sapphire crystal, a sapphire exhibition caseback, and 50 meters of water resistance make it a compelling package.

Both share the same layout: applied Breguet numerals, leaf hands, and a recessed small seconds sub-dial at 6 o'clock, framed by a contrasting silver railroad minute track. The Clous de Paris dial is CNC diamond-cut and then given a galvanic 24-carat gold treatment for a warm rose-toned surface. The Stroopwafel dial is laser-engraved to reproduce that woven waffle texture and finished in a caramel galvanic tone. Both catch light and shift as you move your wrist, and the Stroopwafel in particular looks like nothing else out there right now.

Powering both is the calibre LC-350, a COSC-certified automatic built on the Sellita SW360-1. It beats at 4Hz with a 56-hour power reserve. The watches come on brushed grey suede straps.

The Heritage Atelier Small Seconds Clous de Paris and Stroopwafel will be available during a limited ordering window that opens today and lasts for 14 days. Price is set at €5,500. See more on the Lebois & Co website.

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Andersen Genève Cools Down the Communication 45 With A Platinum Case

Svend Andersen is one of those independents whose name deserves an extreme amount of respect. A founding member of the AHCI, he opened his atelier in 1980 after repairing original Louis Cottier worldtime mechanisms at Gübelin and later restoring them inside Patek Philippe's Grand Complications workshop. That work became his specialty, and the Communication 24 of 1990 built the brand around it. Last year Andersen marked the 45th anniversary of that original with the yellow gold Communication 45. It now comes back in platinum.

The case is 38mm wide and 8.95mm thick, with the classic two-crown Cottier architecture. It’s made by hand by Marco Poluzzi in his La Chaux-de-Fonds workshop, owned by Andersen since 2022, without CNC machinery. The soldered lugs mix teardrop and cow-horn shapes, a nod to the earliest models and to Cottier's own worldtimers. At this size and thickness it wears like a proper dress watch. You get 30 meters of water resistance.

The dial is made out of 21ct BlueGold, with the house's wave-form tapisserie guilloché, cut on a 19th-century machine. The world map, offered in three versions centering Asia, Europe, or America, is filled with liquid unalloyed gold. The city ring is brushed to a silvery-white, and the 24-hour ring is blue for the night hours. Openwork hands point out the time.

Inside is a vintage A. Schild automatic base, restored and re-decorated, the same base Andersen uses in the Celestial Voyager, the Asprey Heures du Monde, and the Tempus Terrae. It beats at 3Hz with 40 hours of power reserve and is paired to the latest version of the in-house worldtime module Svend first designed in the 1980s. The rotor is light blue BlueGold with the same guilloché as the dial. It comes on a dark blue suede strap.

The Andersen Genève Communication 45 Platinum is a limited edition of 45, split into 15 pieces per dial variant, priced at CHF 54,800. See more on the Andersen Genève 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

• For Offrange, Mitch Hagney educates us on how tomatoes ripen naturally and unnaturally, and how Big Tomato forces the issue in huge warehouses by pumping in ethylene gas. It might just inspire you to grow your own.

• Every adult who purports to care about a free press should read at least one story about the frustrating hurdles and bad-faith nitpicking confronted by student journalists (and their advisors). Earlier this year, a young reporter for the Redwood High School Bark found a few local references in the US Department of Justice’s public files concerning Jeffrey Epstein, the sex offender who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. Soon, the high school faced legal threats, and administrators grew concerned that students had published inaccurate information. Ara Rosenthal tells the story of the steady, diligent young journalists who weathered the worries and pressures of the adults around them—and kept their story intact.

• When Steven Judy was executed for rape and murder in 1981, he was little more to the public than a monster. To Traci and Randy Carr, he was something else: a hero and a protector. After all, he was their foster brother. For The Guardian, Masha Hamilton—who covered the Judy trial as a young reporter more than 45 years ago—returns to Indiana to meet the Carrs, and to take the measure of the hole rent in their lives by Judy’s actions and disappearance.

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One video you have to watch today

I love the Speeed channel and I love it when non watch people talk about watches. It’s good to take a step back.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk