The Orient Star Layered Skeleton Gets Summer-Ready Dials; Delma Adds A Big Date To Shell Star; Bamford Teams Up With RB For A Babar Watch; A Great Arcanaut; And A Panerai Submersible Experience

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Those guys over at Arcanaut really do have a screw loose in the best possible way.

Also, check out part two of a three part series on Indian watchmaking. I really enjoyed writing it, learned a lot, and can’t wait to put out more of these long form series.

In this issue:

• The Orient Star Layered Skeleton Gets Two New Summer-Ready Dials

• Delma Adds A Big Date Complication To Their Shell Star Dive Watch

• Bamford London Teams Up With Rowing Blazers For A Babar the Elephant Themed Watch

• Arcanaut’s Latest Dial Could Have Been Inspired By A Bohemian Goblin Born Of Fire

• Panerai Launches Submersible Chrono Marina Militare Experience Edition

👂What’s new

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The Orient Star Layered Skeleton Gets Two New Summer-Ready Dials

Orient is continuing its 75th anniversary celebration. But, by extension, and due to the fact that it was founded only a year later, its higher-end sister-company Orient Star is joining in on the celebration. For their latest release, they’re updating one of their models we don’t see updated very often, the Layered Skeleton, which is getting two very summery new dials.

Like most Orient Star watches, the stainless steel case has a perception of a dress-oriented watch, but with dimensions that are very much not dressy. The case measures 41mm wide, 13.6mm thick and has a 48.3mm lug-to-lug. The case has an overall brushed finish, with polished details. On top is a sapphire crystal, you get a transparent caseback and water resistance is 100 meters.

The dial is made up of two layers that vary in color slightly and the bottom layer has a large paisley-shaped opening between 6:30 and 10 o’clock. There’s also some skeletonization on the power reserve display at 12 o’clock, while the regular seconds sub-dial sits above the 6 o’clock marker. Both versions get applied polished markers, Roman numerals at 12 and 6, and polished and lumed hands. The colors are Champagne and Mint, which really suit the watch very well.

Inside, you’ll find the in-house Calibre F6F44, an automatic that beats at 3Hz and has a 50 hour power reserve. Orient Star claims the accuracy to be +25/-15 seconds per day, which is not spectacular, but most of these watches outperform factory stats. The champagne version comes on a brown leather strap, while the mint comes on a steel bracelet.

The new Layered Skeleton Champagne is part of the regular collection and priced at €830, while the Layered Skeleton Mint is limited to 700 pieces and priced at €900. See more on the Orient Star website.

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Delma Adds A Big Date Complication To Their Shell Star Dive Watch

While not a household name to the general public, Delma has a cult following among enthusiasts of rugged and capable tool watches. They are chunky, they can go to incredible depths and are often built with very specifict tasks in mind, like the Delma Quattro Decompression Diver which you can easily pop out of it’s housing and attach to a decompression plate. The company is now updating their 1970s diver, the Shell Star, with two new cool gradient dials and a big date at 12. This is the new Delma Shell Star Big Date.

The Shell Star was revived about 10 years ago as a tool dive watch, and it comes in size to justify that. The steel barrel shaped case of this new model measures 44mm wide, 13.8mm thick and has a 51mm lug-to-lug. The case is brushed with polished bevels on the side, the crown has guards and at 9 o’clock is a helium escape valve. On top is a unidirectional rotating bezel with deep notches and a black aluminum insert with a filly graduated 60 minutes scale. To round out the toughness of this watch, you get 500 meters of water resistance.

The big update to the dial here are the two orange-outlined apertures at 12 o’clock that display the double big date complication, not something you see often on divers. And it’s extra accentuated by the fact that the date discs are white with black numbers, to stand out from the darker dials. There are two options to choose from when it comes to color — a blue or a reddish-brown. Delma calls it brown, but it has a lot of red in it. Both of the dials have gradients that fade to black, rectangular, orange-framed indices and orange central seconds hand, as well as sword-shaped hour and minute hands.

Inside, you’ll find the ETA 2892-A2 automatic movement with a Jaquet 3512 Big Date module. It beats at 4Hz and has a 42 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a three-link stainless steel bracelet with brushed outer links and a polished middle link, opened with a deployant clasp.

The new Delma Shell Star Big Date is limited to 100 pieces per color and priced at €2,500. See more on the Delma website.

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Bamford London Teams Up With Rowing Blazers For A Babar the Elephant Themed Watch

Rowing Blazers, a preppy revival clothing brand started by Jack Carlson. Think of them as a more adventurous, bolder and hipper Ralph Lauren that has taken the relatively subdued preppy style of RL and blown it up for Gen Z and TikTok users. It’s undoubtedly cool and is having it’s moment now, especially with a huge collaboration with Target that has brought the relatively expensive and hard to get Rowing Blazers clothes to millions of people all over America. RB is also known for their very successful and very sought after collaborations with watch brands like Seiko, Tudor and Zodiac. Now, they’re teaming up with Bamford London for a release that features Babar the Elephant, the iconic character from the French children’s book Histoire de Babar.

The watch comes in a familiar Bamford London case, one that they use for their GMT model. It’s cushion shaped steel case that measures 40mm wide and a decent 11.7mm thick. On the right side you’ll find the crown to wind the movement and set the time, and at 10 o’clock is another crown that operates the internal 24 hour bezel. Water resistances is 100 meters.

The dial is as playful as can get. There’s a black bas on which you get Babar, in his signature green suit and crown, with his hands acting as the hour and minute hands. In addition, you get a third GMT hand that has a red and white pinstripe pattern and a red and white arrow tip.

Inside, you’ll find the Sellita SW330-2 automatic which is the GMT version of the very familiar SW300 movement. It beats at 4Hz and has a 56 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a three-link steel bracelet.

The new Rowing Blazers x Bamford Babar GMT is limited to 99 pieces and priced at $2,348. You can see more of the watch on the Rowing Blazers website.

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Arcanaut’s Latest Dial Could Have Been Inspired By A Bohemian Goblin Born Of Fire

When a brand gets into a groove of releasing watches, it’s kind of easy to predict what’s coming next. There are trends they will follow, including colors, sizes and limited editions. And, to be honest, there’s not much wrong with this. It’s soothing. But on the other side, you have brands like Arcanaut. It’s headed by verified nerds Anders Brandt as Chief Designer, James Thompson aka Black Badger as Chief of Materials Development and Rob Nudds as Head of Brand Development, they are so obviously having a lot of fun. They have a very nice looking case called the ARC II and have released a whole slew of dials that are just increasingly getting wilder. First, it was the Fordite, then came a couple of interesting lumed projects, then we got a wonderful green copper dial, and even a dial made out of coffee grounds. But this new one is truly stunning, as it’s made out hundreds of small Czech garnets, made in collaboration with Prague-based retailer Chronoshop.cz and the historic Garnet company Granát Turnov.

This edition uses the already familiar ARC II case, which is made out of micro-blasted 316L stainless steel that has hand polished highlights. The case quite a dramatic curve to conform to the wearer’s wrist, which makes the 40.52mm width, 12.82mm thickness and 49.06mm lug-to-lug much more manageable even on smaller wrists. Water resistance is 100 meters. On the caseback is an extremely cool medallion with a grinning red Garnet Goblin that glows in the dark.

Then, the dial. Each incorporates hundreds of small (0.8 mm) Czech garnets (Český Granát), a silicate mineral that have been used since the Bronze Age as gemstones and abrasives, hand-arranged in a cluster formation, fused by a clear polymer, and then polished down to a flat sided disc. That disc is then adhered to a gold reflective baseplate to bring out the fire of the garnet whenever it catches the light. Around the perimeters is a drilled gold coated minute track and time is indicated by familiar skeletonised ‘Grand Paw’ hands, only now coated in 9k gold.

Inside, is the Soprod M100 movement. It’s an automatic that beats at 4Hz and has a 42 hour power reserve. The watch comes on an integrated black rubber strap.

The new Arcanaut ARC II Garnet Goblin is available now and limited to 66 pieces. The first five pieces are offered at a pre-order price of €3,900 and this batch will be deliver by the end of August. After that, the price goes up to €4,350. Both of these prices are without tax. See more on the Arcanaut website.

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Panerai Launches Submersible Chrono Marina Militare Experience Edition

For years now, Panerai has been releasing watches that come with their Xperiences Program. It’s one of those things that straddles the line between cool and corny, and the official description doesn’t help tip it to cool as the program “provides owners with access to once-in-a-lifetime opportunities where they can connect deeply with Panerai’s essence, embarking on three different types of experiences, each one dedicated to the core value of the brand: adventure, military, and Italianity.” In essence, they charge you a lot of money to take you on a unique adventure. Their latest release, the Submersible Chrono Marina Militare Experience Edition PAM01699, inspired by Aviazione Navale, is just such a watch.

Being a Submersible, it comes in a familiar case that has quite a presence. It comes in a brushed Grade 5 titanium case that measures a whopping 47mm wide. On top is a unidirectional titanium bezel with a matte black ceramic insert. On the right side of the case you’ll find the iconic lockable crown guard, along with a pusher beneath it. There are two more pushers on the left side, with all of them having their functions engraved on the top side of the cushion-shaped case. Water resistance is 500 meters.

The dial gets a grained green base with two sub-dials at three and nine, which have a cool military-inspired look. Around the perimeter of the dial is a track that holds the applied hour markers and that is labeled “time to target” from 10 to 12 o’clock. That’s because this watch has a countdown function. Press the pusher at 4 and you can move the central chronograph minute hand back in one-minute steps. Start the chrono and you are counting down the “time to target”. All of the lume on the dial is gray Super-LumiNova to match the color of the Aviazione Navale aircraft.

Inside is the Panerai P.9100/R automatic with a vertical clutch and column wheel. It beats at 4Hz, has a 72 hour power reserve and packs a lot of features — hours, minutes, and seconds, a 12-hour flyback chronograph, time-to-target countdown, and a time-zone-jumping function, along with a hacking small seconds that jumps to zero when you pull the crown out. The watch comes on an olive-green canvas with leather lining.

Now, for the experience. Buy the watch and Panerai will set you up with a three-day military bootcamp. According to Panerai, participants “will learn the uncompromising discipline of the Military Corps, participating in thrilling military training activities while gaining rare insight into their usual naval aviation operations through tactical simulations and helicopter missions. Beyond that, guests will have the opportunity to flank aircrew during their flight activity and soak in the authentic atmosphere of southern Italian culture.” Yeah, I’m not sold just yet.

The new Panerai Submersible Chrono Marina Militare Experience Edition PAM01699 is limited to 35 pieces and priced at $60,800, without tax. See more on the Panerai website.

SPECIAL FEATURE: From Mumbai Specials To A Homegrown Powerhouse — The Fall And Rise Of Indian Watchmaking

I’ve teamed up with the very fine folks over at Bangalore Watch Company to bring you a three-part series on Indian watchmaking, from the British occupation and the invention of the JLC Reverso, through homebrew mass production, the rise of the Mumbai special, all the way to the modern rise of Indian brands.

Today, I’m publishing part two, on the Mumbai special and how Indian watchmaking got its reputation back. Read it here.

⏲️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

• Today is the 28th day that I’m dealing with on-again, off-again barely bearable nerve pain that shoots down my left arm. I’m still trying to avoid going to the doctor, as alternatives to surgery are not that common in Croatia and I want to avoid any cutting as long as possible. I’ve been addressing it with a physical therapist and very dedicated exercises that help relieve the pressure on the nerve. And during that time, I’ve been getting a ton of questions from friends whether I’m seeing a chiropractor. Nearly all of those questions come from my American friends. It’s fascinating how those back cracking videos on Instagram popularized a doubious-at-best practice that is quite ridiculed here in most European countries. And just as I was thinking about how that happened, New York magazine published an article on exactly that.

• Operation Babylift was an earnest attempt to save children during the fall of Saigon. Decades later, a generation of adoptees wrestles with the aftermath.

• One Easter Sunday, the Alaska Ranger—a fishing boat out of Dutch Harbor—went down in the Bering Sea, 6,000 feet deep and thirty-two degrees cold. Forty-seven people were on board, and nearly half of them would spend hours floating alone in the darkness, in water so frigid it can kill a man in minutes. Forty-two of them would be rescued. Here’s how.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

Again… Petrolicious, with their spectacular videos… If only there was someone to do the same thing with watches…

Thanks for reading,
Vuk