The Refreshed Citizen Rolan Drops the Clutter; Arsène Lippens Brings The Artigianio Back; Maen's Manhattan 37 Ultra Thin; Cuervo y Sobrinos Revives Havana's Lost GP; A Pastel Hublot Summer

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Feel free to call me an uncultured swine, but I really like a pastel ceramic Hublot and I can’t help myself.

In this issue

• The Refreshed Citizen Rolan Drops the Clutter, Keeps the Solar Movement

• In Case You Missed It The First Time, Arsène Lippens Brings The Sold-Out Artigianio Back

• Maen Introduces Their First Boutique Watch, A Wonderful Blue Manhattan 37 Ultra Thin

• Cuervo y Sobrinos Revives Havana's Lost Grand Prix in Three Colours

• Hublot Embraces A Very Pastel Summer With A Bunch Of New Ceramic Watches

👂What’s new

1/

The Refreshed Citizen Rolan Drops the Clutter, Keeps the Solar Movement

Citizen's affordable dress watches rarely make noise, which is part of why they're so interesting. You don’t want them to stand out. Citizen also has a problem with some of their more dressy watches, by trying to do too much. It could be possible that they are also aware of this, as they just refreshed their Rolan collection. The brand has stripped the old version's cluttered dial down to time-only and reworked the case. I’m still not sure that case move was the right way to go, but the dials are killer, just like the movement and price.

The case is stainless steel, round, and now 41mm wide, up from the previous generation. That's large for a dress watch, and traditionalists will grumble, fairly. Even I, who usually don’t mind larger watches, am not completely enthusiastic about the new size. The finishing is mostly brushed with a polished bezel, and the redesigned lugs are longer and more fluid than the angular ones they replace, which softens the whole case. Citizen also dropped the knurled crown for a conical one at 3 o'clock. What hasn’t change is the mineral crystal and 50 meters of water resistance, both of which could be improved.

I would have skipped the new Rolan because of the new case, but the dials made up for the downsides in such a good way. Gone are the old day apertures at 12 and the date window at 6, leaving a clean three-hander with a sector layout and a faint crosshair that gives it some depth. Applied baton indices and Dauphine hands handle the dress-watch duties, and there's lume on both for low light. A railway minute track around the edge adds a bit of vintage flavor. Two dials are out now: a black sandblasted version (AW2110-06E) and a salmon one (AW2110-14Z). The salmon is the one to get, warm and contemporary without trying too hard. A gold-tone case with a brown gilt dial will come out soon.

Inside is Citizen's Eco-Drive J830, a solar quartz calibre that runs on natural or artificial light and never needs a battery. You wear it, you forget it, it keeps running. It comes on a black or brown leather strap depending on the dial, with a signed pin buckle.

The Citizen Rolan is available now at $395. See more on the Citizen website.

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In Case You Missed It The First Time, Arsène Lippens Brings The Sold-Out Artigianio Back

When I first saw the Artigianio in Geneva last year, it stopped me cold. I'd struck up a conversation with Dries Lippens in front of a venue at Geneva Watch Days, and without that chance encounter it would have taken me a lot longer to find Arsène Lippens at all. The collection sold out, as good small-batch watches tend to. Now it's back for a single limited run of 50 pieces, and if you missed it the first time, this is the second chance you don't usually get.

The watches, three of them, come in fairly simple cases with fantastic dimensions and a few choice details. The stainless steel case measures 37.5mm wide, with a lug-to-lug of 45.5mm, and a great 9.9mm thick including the box-shaped sapphire crystal. Holding the crystal down is a double stepped bezel, and the case is finished in a mix of brushing and polishing. Out back is a closed caseback, one of the real selling points here: the brand offers free engravings of small drawings to personalize the watch. That comes from the co-founder's grandfather, Arsène Lippens, who along with a group of friends had a tradition of buying Swiss watches together and engraving them to mark the occasion. A push-pull crown on the side gets you 50 meters of water resistance.

The case is good, but the dials will blow you away. There are three versions, each made from an actual piece of fabric, and you can tell. You don't have to look closely to notice the fuzz of the weave, and it's a lot of fun to look at. The three options: Como, a blue dial made from denim; Chianti, a tweed-like material of cotton and bamboo; and Portofino, a turquoise green, also cotton and bamboo. All of the fabrics are Italian textiles. There isn't much else on the dial beyond the brand name and a set of sharp faceted Dauphine hands, which is exactly right.

Inside is the familiar Sellita SW210-1b, a manual wind movement that beats at 4Hz with a 48 hour power reserve. The watches come on tan, blue, and brown alcantara leather straps, each closed with a pin buckle.

This run of the Artigianio is limited to 50 pieces in total, with the order window open from June 22 at 12:00 PM CET to June 28 at 12:00 PM CET. Price is CHF 1,095, without tax. See more on the Arsène Lippens website, when the collection goes live on Monday.

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Maen Introduces Their First Boutique Watch, A Wonderful Blue Manhattan 37 Ultra Thin

Maen has spent the last few years turning the Manhattan into one of the best affordable integrated-bracelet watches, and last year's 37 Ultra Thin was the high point: thinner, dressier, hand-wound, and very well priced. The new MBE.001 is a boutique-only spin on that watch, and the only thing that changes is the dial. That turns out to be enough.

The stainless steel case is unchanged, which is the point. It's 37mm wide, 7.1mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 47.4mm. The octagonal bezel and the mix of brushed and polished surfaces give it 1970s reference points without leaning on them too hard. Water resistance is 100 meters, which is way more than a watch this slim has to offer.

Maen has swapped the textured Tuscan finish dial of the standard collection for a blue Côtes de Genève fumé, bright at the center and darkening toward the edge. It’s dressier than the textured versions, and the gradient gives it some depth. Large applied indices and luminous central hands remain the same.

Inside is the hand-wound La Joux-Perret D101, a Peseux 7001 alternative running at 3Hz with a 50-hour power reserve, visible through the sapphire back with traditional finishing. The watch comes on the integrated steel bracelet with a concealed deployant clasp; a black FKM strap is available separately for EUR 149.

The Maen Manhattan 37 Ultra Thin MBE.001 is priced at €1,499 on the bracelet, available only through Maen's boutique channels. See more on the Maen website.

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Cuervo y Sobrinos Revives Havana's Lost Grand Prix in Three Colours

Despite the baggage that came with it, there was a stretch in the 1950s when Havana was one of the most glamorous cities on earth, and for three years it was the racing capital of the Caribbean. The Gran Premio de Cuba was driven only three times, won by Juan Manuel Fangio in 1957 and Stirling Moss in 1958 and 1960. Around the same time, there was a small repair shop in Havana, Cuba that fixed local watches and clocks. As Havana became more glamorous and the clientele more affluent, the small shop started importing watches like Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin and Rolex to Cuba, for people like Caruso, Gary Cooper, Hemingway and Einstein. The small shop, Cuervo y Sobrinos, soon started making their own watches but they didn’t survive the quartz crisis. In the 1990s, the brand was revived and it’s now based in Capolago, Switzerland and has carved a niche with models that lean heavily on vintage design cues and a touch of Cuban flamboyance. Continuing it’s series of racing watches, they are now releasing the Gran Premio de Cuba Chronograph Trilogy, all inspired by the original event posters.

The case is shared across all three: 41mm wide and 15.25mm thick in stainless steel, with rectangular pushers, curved case flanks and a double-domed sapphire crystal on top with anti-reflective treatment. That thickness is what you'd expect from a 7750-powered chronograph, so no surprises there, though it's a tall watch by any measure. The sapphire caseback is engraved with the corresponding race year. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The dials are where Cuervo y Sobrinos gets to tell the story of the three races. The 1957 has an almost terracotta brown dial with mustard sub-counters, drawn from the inaugural event's artwork. The 1958 is the most aggressive one, a bold yellow dial with green sub-dials, and it commemorates the most memorable race of the lot: Fangio was kidnapped the night before by Castro's men to embarrass President Batista, held for 29 hours, and released unharmed. The 1960 Gran Premio Libertad closes things out with a crisp white dial and red counters. All three use the standard layout associated with the 7750 movement, running seconds at 9, 30-minute counter at 12, 12-hour totaliser at 6, with the date worked in. Leaf hands for the time, red arrow hands for the chronograph.

Inside is the automatic Valjoux 7750, beating at 4Hz with a 48-hour power reserve. It's one of the most reliable chronograph calibres ever made, and Cuervo y Sobrinos has shaped the rotor like a steering wheel and finished it with a gold-coloured emblem, visible through the caseback. Each watch comes on a black perforated calfskin strap meant to recall vintage driving gloves, with contrast stitching matched to its dial counters.

The limited numbers track the distance of each race: 162 for the 1957, 174 for the 1958, 202 for the 1960. Each is priced at $6,990 and available now. See more on the Cuervo y Sobrinos website.

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Hublot Embraces A Very Pastel Summer With A Bunch Of New Ceramic Watches

There are maybe two brands on the planet who can produce pale pastel ceramic without it going wrong, and Hublot is one of them. The material starts as zirconium oxide powder mixed with pigment and sintered at brutal temperatures, and a small error in the process ruins either the colour or the part. Saturated tones are hard enough; pastels are worse, because any inconsistency in a soft shade is far easier to spot. The new Big Bang Summer collection is Hublot leaning into that difficulty, built around pink, mint green and sky blue inspired by the Mediterranean.

The star of the show is the Big Bang Summer Multi-Coloured Ceramic 42mm, full ceramic, with all three pastels (pink, mint green and sky blue) distributed across the case and bezel. The case is 42mm wide and 14.5mm thick, with a sapphire crystal over an openworked dial, and with 100 meters of water resistance. The matte mint green dial sits against the multi-coloured case with the chronograph mechanism partly visible beneath. Inside is the HUB1280, an automatic flyback chronograph running at 4Hz (28,800 vph) with a 72-hour reserve, a column-wheel layout, and the flyback function that resets and restarts the timer with a single push. It comes on a mint green rubber strap, priced at €33,700, limited to 200 pieces. See more of it here.

Its non-limited companion is the Big Bang Titanium Peach Ceramic 42mm, same case shape and movement, different material. Swapping the ceramic case body for titanium gives it a lighter, more industrial character, but still summery with a peach ceramic bezel. The dimensions remain 42mm wide and 14.5mm thick, sapphire crystal, 100 meters water resistance. The openworked orange-peach dial carries matching peach accents through the skeletonised chronograph display, and the bezel colour ties back to it cleanly. The movement is the same HUB1280 flyback column-wheel chronograph, 4Hz, 72-hour reserve. The watch comes on an orange-peach rubber strap, priced at €23,500. See it here.

Going back to the pastel trio, we have the Big Bang Summer Multi-Coloured Ceramic Tourbillon 44mm, limited to 10 pieces. It uses the same colors as the chronograph, pink case middle, green structural elements, blue bezel. The case runs 44mm wide and 14.4mm thick, with 300 meters of water resistance, the highest in the collection. The fully skeletonised HUB6035 puts a one-minute tourbillon at 6 o'clock and the mainspring barrel up top, running at 3Hz (21,600 vph) with a 72-hour reserve. Hour markers are suspended on a translucent pink sapphire disc and the peripheral minute track is green, so the colourway carries through the open movement rather than stopping at the case. It comes on a mint green rubber strap, priced at €116,000. See it here.

Closing the collection is the Big Bang Ceramic 33mm in mint green, petrol blue and peach. At 33mm wide and 10.55mm thick it's the smallest Big Bang, and this is the first time the 33mm has no gemstones on the bezel, dial or case. The mint green and petrol blue already exist as gem-set models, but this looks so much better. The polished ceramic cases get sapphire crystals and 100 meters of water resistance, and all of them have the HUB1120 automatic at 4Hz with a shorter 40-hour reserve and a straightforward time-and-date layout, all on structured rubber straps. The watches are priced at €15,200, the exact same as the steel gem-set versions. See more on the Hublot 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

• In this fun and humorous piece for The Atlantic, we get to ride shotgun with Caity Weaver as she visits yard sales, thrift stores, and, estate sales (the most coveted of all second-hand opportunities) to indulge her fondness for buying needful things at bargain prices.

• Brexit campaigners promised that once Britain left the EU, the British fishing industry would thrive. Did it ever happen? The answer Jack Burke finds is nuanced. No, there was no revolution, but neither did the dire predictions of Remainers fully come true. And, as it turns out, the real problems facing British fishing lie much closer to home. It’s time Britain looked to its own shoreline.

• For New York Review of Architecture, Jennifer Kabat reviews Weeds: A Germinating Theory, a novella-length photo essay by Hong Kong artist Kwan Queenie Li. Li photographs weeds around the world, and Kabat offers a stimulating commentary of Li’s work, from her theories to her photographs.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

An Ecuadorian mountaineer balances friendship, love, and luck in his quest to climb a new route on one of the tallest and most dangerous mountains in the world. Esteban ‘Topo’ Mena is an Ecuadorian mountain guide and rising star in alpine climbing whose dream is to climb the first ascent of a new route on Mount Everest. He teams up with Cory Richards, a National Geographic photographer and the first American to climb an 8,000-meter peak in winter, and they attempt a never-before-tried climb on the north face of Everest.

Though they fail on their first attempt, they vow to return the following season. However, due to the global pandemic, the North side of Everest remains closed, so the ambitious duo turns their attention to a futuristic new route on Dhaulagiri, the seventh highest mountain in the world. This route, however, looks far harder and more avalanche-prone than Everest, demanding that they team up with a third climber.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk