Tissot Releases COSC Balade; Sinn Introduces A Bunch Of Watches; Awake's Silver Leaf Vignette; Laco's Smaller Green Pilot’s Watches; Breguet's Enamel Phosphorescence On A Marine Hora Mundi 5555

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Those Awake watches are becoming more and more interest.

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In this issue

• Tissot Gives The Balade, A 90s Legend That Promises A Lot, A Sleek Look And COSC Movement

• Sinn Introduces A Bunch Of New Watches, From Hardcore Tools To Elegant Pastel Colors

• Awake Introduces The Silver Leaf Vignette Of Their Already Cool Sơn Mài Collection

• Laco Renders Their Cool Green Augsburg and Aachen Pilot’s Watches In A Smaller Case

• Breguet Continues 250th Anniversary Celebration With Enamel Phosphorescence On A Marine Hora Mundi 5555

👂What’s new

1/

Tissot Gives The Balade, A 90s Legend That Promises A Lot, A Sleek Look And COSC Movement

Tissot has been hunting for their next blockbuster watch. They did a lot with the Gentleman, the recently introduced the PR516 and made moves all over the market to try to recreate the success of the PRX, perhaps the most important watch of the past few years. With its vintage-inspired design, on-trend integrated bracelet and accessible pricing (especially in the quartz models), the PRX brought in thousands of new watch enthusiast to the industry. Now, they have a new contender for that position, and I just think it might work. Maybe not with this one release, but Tissot is best at making broad collections. And I can’t wait to see what they will do with the new Ballade. Technically, they brought back the collection last year, but this new Tissot Ballade COSC collection is a good indicator of what’s to come.

The new Tissot Ballade COSC collection is made up of 7 models in two sizes. The larger one measures 39mm wide and 10.98mm thick, while the smaller one measures 30mm wide and 10.55mm thick. They’re all made out of stainless steel, with brushed and polished finishes, a sapphire crystal on top and a transparent caseback. On top, all of them have really nice fluted bezels, giving the watches a very familiar look. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The dials continue on the pattern of the fluted bezel with stamped sunray patterns that give it a pretty nice look. The dials have applied Roman numerals, the hands have a tiny bit of lume and at 3 o’clock is a framed date aperture with a white date disc inside. The 39mm version can be had with a silver, dark blue or dark green dial, or with a silver dial that has yellow gold colored PVD coating on the bezel, bracelet midlinks, hands and numerals. The 30mm comes with a steel case with an ice blue or silver dial, as well as a silver dial with PVD rose gold accents.

The relaunched Ballade from last year came with just a quartz movement, but this new one gets the movement everyone wants. The 30mm version gets the Powermatic 48, which is based on the ETA 2671, beating at 3Hz, with a 48 hour power reserve. The 39mm version comes with the ETA 2824-2 based Powermatic 80 which beats at the same 3Hz and has a 80 hour power reserve. All of the watches are COSC certified, which is pretty great at this price point. The watches come on a 5-link steel bracelet with butterfly clasp.

The new Tissot Ballade COSC collection is available now, with prices same for both sizes — €1,025 for the steel versions and €1,095 for the steel and PVD versions. See more on the Tissot website.

2/

Sinn Has A Bunch Of New Watches, From Hardcore Tools To Elegant Pastel Colors

OK, the title is a bit misleading. Sinn didn’t just release these new watches. They were announced more than two weeks ago, but coming right ahead of Geneva Watch Days, it took me a while to get to them. Looking at them now, that’s a shame, because these are some really cool releases from Sinn. We have a new EZM 3 S, a set of colorful 556 models, and a new take on the 104 Classic 12. Something for everyone

Starting with the EZM 3 S, it’s a hardcore tool watch, designed for extreme diving. It comes in a stainless steel bracelet that gets a black hard Tegimented coating and measures 41mm wide and 12.3mm thick. It’s actually quite compact when you consider what this watch was made for. It’s water resistant to 500 meters, which is backed up by a DIN 8310 standard test, and it’s made to work -45 and +80 degrees Celsius. It has the Sinn Ar‑Dehumidifying Technology which prevents fogging up, and is resistant to 1,000 gauss of magnetism. On top is a black bezel with a fully graduated 60 minute scale. The dial is black, with white printed markings and black hands with white lume. Inside is the Sellita SW200-1 automatic, beating at 4Hz, with a 38 hour power reserve. The watch can be hand on a black steel bracelet, fabric strap, or silicone strap. The new EZM 3 S is priced at €2,190 on a strap and €2,650 on the bracelet. See more on the Sinn website.

Moving on to the biggest surprise of the release, a pastel take on the Sinn 556. The 556 Sinn’s closest watch to a dress watch, so it’s really interesting to see them in such great colors. The case measures 38.5mm wide and 11mm thick, with sapphire crystals on top and bottom. Water resistance is still pretty great at 200 meters. The dials have a guilloché pattern creating 12 sections for a sunburst look and there are four colors to choose from: sand, ice blue, mauve and sage, and they are all very pastel like. Inside, you’ll find the same Sellita SW200-1 movement. The watches can be had on either a bracelet or a fabric strap and they are limited to 300 pieces per color. Price is set at €1,450 on strap and €1,800 on bracelet. See the watches here.

Last we have the new 104 Classic 12. It comes in a 41mm wide stainless steel case with a ceramic 12-hour bezel insert, all of which we’ve seen before. Novelties happen on the dial, where the black base gets a cream colored small seconds indicator at 6 o’clock. Water resistance is 200 meters. Inside is the Sellita SW261-1 automatic with the same 4Hz beat rate and 38 hour power reserve. Price is set at €1,690 on a strap and €1,990 on the bracelet. See it here.

3/

Awake Introduces The Silver Leaf Vignette Of Their Already Cool Sơn Mài Collection

The French brand Awake has a great story. For years, they made limited edition watches. All of their releases were special projects that very often included collaborations, there were a lot of space-themed watches and all of them were pretty cool. Then, late last year, Awake introduced their first permanent collection called the Son Mài. It is a beautifully elegant watch that features incredible Vietnamese sanded lacquer dials. Now, we’re getting a new take on it called the Silver Leaf Vignette, one with sanded lacquer and silver leaf gilding, combined with natural pigments, all with a gradient color in five versions.

The case of the watch remains virtually unchanged, made out of recycled stainless steel, and measuring 39mm wide and 11.8mm thick, including the crystal. Without the crystal, the thickness drops down to 10.9mm. On top is a rounded bezel, surrounding the sapphire crystal, the side of the case is brushed, and you get polished surfaces on top of the lugs, with a wide polished chamfer stretching down the edge od the case. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The dials is what’s new. They’re made using the same lacquer over silver leaf technique as the original Silver Leaf series, which gives a textured finish, and now all the dials get a fumé gradient that Awake calls a vignette finish. The colors are Carmine Red, Palladium, Moonlight Blue and Ultra Violet. But wait, that’s four colors and five watches in the picture above. That’s because the Gold Hour colorway, the best of the five, is a limited edition. On top of that dial you get the signature hands and applied markers. However, instead of just painting them with lume, the hands and indices are made out of solid blocks of SuperLuminova BGW9, which is then capped with a faceted, polished steel overlay. That gives them both a backglow, which is just beautiful.

Inside is the La Joux-Perret G101 automatic movement, an alternative to the ubiquitous but increasingly hard to source ETA 2824, and the Sellita SW200. However, it has a much better power reserve than those two at 68 hours, and the same beat rate of 4Hz. The movement is decorated with Geneva stripes and a customised tungsten rotor. The watches come on straps made by master saddlers of the Bouveret company located in Franche-Comté in various colors.

The four new Awake Silver Leaf Vignette watches are part of the regular collection, while the Golden Hour is limited to 100 pieces. The watches are available for pre-order now, with deliveries starting in October. Price is set at €2,500. See more on the Awake website.

4/

Laco Renders Their Cool Green Augsburg and Aachen Pilot’s Watches In A Smaller Case

There’s a very specific reason why so many pilot’s watches look very much the same. They have to have large hands, a clean dial and easily readable numerals because they are supposed to be used while flying a plane, obviously. There’s the Type A flieger and the Type B flieger, which differ a bit in complexity. That leaves you with two options - either create a completely different looking watch, something like the Circula ProFlight Flieger, or use the traditional flieger architecture and play with colors. The latter is what Laco did over the past couple of years with some pretty successful limited editions. In fact, the LEs were so successful, they are now introducing one of the colors in a smaller case. These are the new Laco Augsburg and Aachen with a matte green dial in the 39mm case.

While the Augsburg and the Aachen in green previously came in 42mm sizes, this limited edition comes only in the smaller one. This means that the stainless steel case measures 39mm wide, 11.5mm thick and has a 46.5mm lug-to-lug. The cases have a brushed finish, topped off with a polished bezel. That bezel surrounds a sapphire crystal, which is where we encounter one of Laco’s many quirky customisation options. The crystal comes with no anti-reflective coating, but for €50 more, you can get one. A bit bizarre to offer this an option, but I like it. Oh, and more customisation is available on the case, as you can engrave either the caseback or the side of the case.

The Augsburg and the Aachen share the case, but differ on the dial. The Augsburg is what is called the Type A flieger which has just the minute track along the edge of the dial and big numerals for the hours, while the Aachen is a Type B, which has large minute numerals on the outside and a inner ring for the hours. There’s also a slight difference in the length of the characteristic sword-shaped hands. But new for the limited edition is the new color. It’s not the first time Laco have altered the colors of the traditional flieger, but this deep forest green might be my favorite.

Inside, more bizarre options to be had. You can get the Laco S2, which is powered by the Miyota 82S0. The movement beats at 21,600vph and has a 42 hour power reserve. But you can also spend €55 more and get the Laco 31, which uses the Miyota 8315, a slightly update movement that has the same beat rate and upgraded power reserve of 60 hours, along with thermally blued screws. The watches come on a gray leather strap with green stitching that matches the color on the dial.

The Laco Augsburg and Aachen are limited to 250 each and priced at €440 for the base watch. Upgrade the crystal and movement, and you’ll be spending €545. Since that’s still a very reasonable price, I don’t really see much sense in not getting the upgrades. See more on the Laco website.

 5/

Breguet Continues 250th Anniversary Celebration With Enamel Phosphorescence On A Marine Hora Mundi 5555

There aren’t many watch brands out there that can celebrate 250 years of existence. Breguet is one of them, and that’s exactly the anniversary they are celebrating right now. They’ve been making some pretty amazing watches this entire year, four of them so far. The fifth… oh boy, the fifth. it’s a pretty incredible Marine Hora Mundi 5555, perhaps the most extravagant travel watch you’ll see today. Not just because of it’s very trick movement that instantly switches movements, but also an incredible double-layered dial with a phosphorescent effect.

The fun starts with the case. Made out of 18k Breguet gold, the case is substantial at 43.9mm wide and 13.8mm thick. The case has brushed and polished finishes, with their signature fluted case middle. It also has really interesting lugs with a polished central link and two crowns — one at 3 o’clock to set the time and one at 8 o’clock to select the city and time zone you’re in. It has a closed caseback with a special 250th-anniversary guilloché pattern known as Quai de l’Horloge. Most shocking of all, it has a 100 meter water resistance, which you surely don’t expect from a watch like this.

The dial is even more special than the case, one that you surely haven’t seen before. It’s a gold base with a gradient from sky blue at the centre to navy on the periphery, decorated with handmade guilloché meridians and parallels, creating the optical illusion of a curved Earth. But things get even wilder on the second dial. Yeah, there’s a second translucent sapphire crystal placed over the base dial which serves as a canvas for a miniature enamel painting of the continents of the Earth. A second stage of painting involves painting on the clouds, while the third involves miniature phosphorescent enamel painting to light up the cities at night. Incredibly cool. On top of that, you get applied Roman numerals in blued gold, Breguet gold hands and a day/night indicator in the form of a gold Sun with a sunburst finish and a hand-hammered half Moon. At 12 o’clock is an opening for the date, and at 6 an opening for the cities for the selection of the time zone.

The calibre 77F1 has a really cool world timer function. Instead of a second hand, you select the desired city with the crown at 8. When you press down on the pusher integrated into the crown, the central hands flip from local time to the time zone referenced on the selector at 6. But it’s not just the time that jumps, you also see the date and day/night indicators jump. The movement is an automatic, beating at 4Hz, with a 55 hour power reserve. The movement is decorated with Côtes de Genève and perlage and is overall beautiful. The watch comes on a navy blue alligator leather strap, with a Breguet gold triple-folding clasp, and you get an additional rubber strap.

The new Breguet Marine Hora Mundi 5555 is limited to 50 individually numbered pieces. Price is set at CHF 88,000. See more on the Breguet website.

⏲️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

• Eastern Kentucky suffered devastating floods in 2022 and 2023. Not long after, residents reported encountering goblins, mysterious beings who, account after account, were reported to resemble Dobby, the house elf from Harry Potter. Lora Eli Smith, who worked on crisis response with the Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky, reports for Oxford American.

• The U.S. Army’s Best Ranger Competition reveals the extraordinary endurance and skill of today’s elite soldiers—a far cry from claims of “wokeness” eroding combat power. From 61-day Ranger School to a three-day Ranger Olympics, men and women now compete side by side, proving that toughness, teamwork, and expertise define modern military excellence—not politics.

• An Oklahoma care center for people with developmental disabilities became a site of unchecked abuse, intimidation, and cover-up, with staff accused of beatings, waterboarding, and retaliation against whistleblowers. Despite damning evidence and multiple arrests after police intervention, most perpetrators evaded accountability—highlighting the dangers and failures of privatized, poorly overseen care for society’s most vulnerable.

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Thanks for reading,
Vuk