Tissot Teams Up With Legendary Bikemaker Pinarello; Sinn's Hunting Watch; New M.A.D.2 Editions; Enamel Dial Lebois & Co; More Universal Genève Watches; Angelus Brings Back Little Known Tinkler

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Last regular release before I hit the road to Geneva. Also, last chance to hit me up and see if we can grab a beer at the Grand Duke.

In this issue

• Tissot Teams Up With Legendary Bikemaker Pinarello For A Very Special Edition Carbon Watch

• Sinn Adds One More Outdoor Profession Tool Watch To The Lineup With The 308 Jagduhr, A Hunter’s Watch

• MB&F Releases Two New Red M.A.D.2 Eric Giroud Editions, With Much Better Chances Of Getting One

• Lebois & Co Expands The Atelier Variant Of The Heritage Chronograph, Now In Blue And White Enamel

• More Universal Genève Releases Include Very Cool Disco Volante And Dioramic Models

• Angelus Brings Back The Little Known Tinkler, A Supremely Cool Repeater

👂What’s new

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Tissot Teams Up With Legendary Bikemaker Pinarello For A Very Special Edition Carbon Watch

Tissot has been the official timekeeper for the Tour de France and Vuelta a España long enough that a cycling watch from them isn't a surprise — but this one is a different kind of effort. The last time Tissot released a cycling-themed watch, the PR100 Tour de France chronograph, it felt like a brand going through the motions of a sponsorship rather than actually caring about the subject. The Pinarello collaboration is the opposite. Pinarello has been building race bikes since 1952 out of Treviso, and their frames, used by multiple Tour de France winners, carry the kind of credibility that makes "the Ferrari of cycling" a reasonable comparison. It also might signal that Tissot is jumping on the cycling trend that’s grabbing watches.

The case is 42mm wide and built from forged carbon, the same lightweight composite found in high-end Pinarello frames. It's slightly asymmetrical, with the case extending out on the left size, swooping up to meet and protect the crown that sits at 10 o'clock, which is also a reference to Pinarello's ForkFlap, the aerodynamic fin on their front forks. The box-shaped sapphire crystal adds some visual depth, and the watch is water-resistant to 100 meters. The Pinarello name doesn't appear on the dial — it's engraved on the caseside and caseback

The grey dial has a grained asphalt texture, with black-nickel baton indices filled with Super-LumiNova hovering attached to a disc that sits above the central part of the dial. The co-branding stays off the face entirely, except for the second hand's counterweight shaped into the Pinarello P logo.

Inside is the Powermatic 80, Tissot's workhorse automatic built on an ETA 2824 base with a reworked kinetic chain and Nivachron hairspring, running at 21,600vph with an 80-hour power reserve. The movement is COSC certified. The watch ships on an integrated rubber strap with a quick-change system and an additional leather strap included in the box.

The Tissot x Pinarello Special Edition is priced at CHF 1,355 and is available now. It doesn’t seem to be a limited edition. See more on the Tissot website.

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Sinn Adds One More Outdoor Profession Tool Watch To The Lineup With The 308 Jagduhr, A Hunter’s Watch

Sinn has spent decades making watches for people in genuinely dangerous situations — paramedics, divers, police units, the German military. The mission-specific logic is real: you identify the job, you engineer a solution. They’re applying the same to another very specific task — hunting. Germany bans artificial light sources during hunting, which means Jäger operating at night have to work with whatever the sky gives them. The 308 Jagduhr is Sinn's answer to that, a simpler follow-up to the earlier 3006 chronograph, stripped down to time, date, and an interesting complication.

The 308 is 40mm wide and 12mm thick, fairly compact by Sinn standards. The case is satinized stainless steel, which reads as matte and utilitarian in the best possible way. Water resistance is 200 meters, backed by Sinn's Ar-Dehumidifying technology: a capsule built into the side of the case that absorbs moisture and changes color when it's saturated.

The dial is hunter green, which seems almost too on-the-nose, but it looks good, especially paired with the light green color of the lume in the hands and markers. At 6 o'clock you’ll find an aperture with a luminous disc that tracks the lunar cycle. According to Sinn, the three days before and after a full moon produce the best hunting light, and the disc indicates when you're in that window. Arrows on the dial show the direction of travel. There's also a pointer date complication.

Inside is a modified Sellita SW382-1, visible through the sapphire caseback, beating at 4Hz with a 56 hour power reserve. The 308 is available on a steel bracelet or on leather and silicone strap options.

The Sinn 308 Jagduhr is priced at €2,870 on the steel bracelet, and €2,570 on leather or silicone. See more on the Sinn website.

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MB&F Releases Two New Red M.A.D.2 Eric Giroud Editions, With Much Better Chances Of Getting One

MB&F makes some of the most intricate, complicated and expensive watches one can buy. I mean, they call their watches horological machines, which kind of tells you everything you have to know about them. But what if you could apply the same out-of-the-box approach that MB&F is known for to a more affordable watch. That wasn’t exactly the idea that Max Büsser had when they started M.A.D. — it was to make a watch for the many partners they were working with — but it kind of formed into that. The M.A.D. 1 saw a bunch of fantastic variants and then last year, in collaboration with designer Eric Giroud, they released the M.A.D.2 — a DJ-inspired watch with jumping hours, a vinyl-groove dial, and a strobing rotor. Now they're back with two new versions of it, with a new way to get one. One that many people will really like.

The M.A.D.2 case hasn't changed. It's 42mm wide and 12.3mm thick, with that smooth, rounded pebble shape Giroud describes as an almond finish — polished, gently curved bezel, traditional lugs, domed sapphire on both sides. The alien face on the crown is still there. Water resistance is 30 meters.

The two new versions split on colour. The R&B — short for Red & Black, and yes, a nod to the music genre — has a black central dial plate with vinyl grooves and two red discs for the jumping hours on the left and trailing minutes on the right. The REDemption inverts that: bright red dial plate, black discs. The REDemption also has "They say I'm stubborn, I'd say persistent" engraved on its rotor, which will make sense in a second. Both feature the stroboscopic rotor effect visible from the front, the perforated automatic rotor swinging over Super-LumiNova stop pins beneath the dial plate.

The movement is the same La Joux-Perret G101 as last year — 4Hz, 64-hour power reserve, with an MB&F-developed module on top for the bi-directional jumping hours and trailing minutes. Both come on leather straps with a stainless steel folding buckle featuring the alien face on the clasp.

The M.A.D.2 R&B goes through the usual raffle system, open April 14 to April 20. The M.A.D.2 REDemption, however, skips the raffle entirely. It's reserved for people who have entered at least four previous raffles and never won, and those fans will be contacted directly. Looks like your persistence might pay off. Both are priced at CHF 2,900 excluding tax. See more on the MB&F website.

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Lebois & Co Expands The Atelier Variant Of The Heritage Chronograph, Now In Blue And White Enamel

Tom van Wijlick is a Dutch entrepreneur with a seemingly simple idea that drives his business decisions - make incredibly cool, vintage-inspired, watches that sell for an accessible price and meet pretty much every demand the market has. And he’s doing good. One of the brands he owns, Airain, is developing new models in close collaboration with its fanbase and the other, Lebois & Co. is recreating some of the best designs of the past. Actually, that’s not true. Lebois has been making a wide range of watches, from modern to avant-garde, and only a couple of years ago did they launch their Heritage Chronograph which thrust them into the limelight of vintage-revival. The Heritage Chrono came with a bi-compax setup and a number of fantastic retro colors, including the coveted salmon. Then last year, they introduced the Heritage Chrono Atelier, which upped the price significantly from the base model, but in return you got a stunningly beautiful eggshell enamel dial. Now, we’re getting the second Atelier model called Bleu-sur-Blanc which, as the name says, gets a blue on white dial, also in enamel.

The stainless steel case remains the same, which is a good thing. Because it’s a simple but beautiful case. Made out of stainless steel, with a mix of brushed and polished surfaces, with a thin beveled bezel. The pushers, which look amazing, and the angled lugs have a strong and pronounced bevel to them. The case measures 39mm wide and 14.3mm thick, but a lot of that thickness is used up by the hugely domed sapphire crystal on top. Water resistance is 50 meters.

Then, there’s the new dial. Its name, Bleu-sur-Blanc, tells you all you need to know. This one is again made by legendary dialmaker Donzé Cadrans and it’s made out of grand feu enamel onto which enamel-based inks are printed on to give you blue sub-dials, Breguet numerals and a pulsation scale. The hands are once again leaf-shaped.

Inside, and visible through the caseback, is the calibre LC-450, which is essentially a manual wound La Joux-Perret L100 series column wheel chronograph movement made for Lebois & Co. The movement beats at 28,800vph and has a great power reserve of 60 hours. Decorations are on point, as well - a blued column wheel with polished column tops and blued screws, perlage and Côtes de Genève. The watch comes on a grey suede strap.

The new Lebois & Co. Heritage Chronograph Atelier Bleu-sur-Blanc will have limited production in 2026. Price is set at €9,800, just like the previous Atelier. See more on the Lebois & Co. website.

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More Universal Genève Releases Include Very Cool Disco Volante And Dioramic Models

Since Breitling acquired Universal Genève, the revival of the brand has been a slow burn. They gave us the Polerouter SAS tributes as completely unattainable one-off collection. Maybe a picture here, a tease there. Then, two days ago, the floodgates opened and UG released more than two dozen models at once. Yesterday, I covered the classic Polerouter and the Compax chronographs. Today, we have a couple of more groovy variants — the Disco Volante Signature chronograph and the Dioramic Signature time-and-date, both deep pulls from the catalogue and both very cool.

The Disco Volante is the louder of the two: 45mm wide, 12.78mm thick, in steel or rose gold, with a stepped case and polished inner bezel pulled from Uni-Compax chronographs of the 1930s. The lugless design brings the lug-to-lug down to 45mm — same as the diameter — so it wears tighter than the number implies. Squared-off pushers and a knurled crown nest into the case cutout. The Dioramic is the more elegant counterpart: 37mm wide, 9.15mm thick, with a concentric fluted bezel that adds visual presence well beyond what the case size alone delivers. You also get twisted polished lugs, and a round cutout date window that appears on the bezel — a signature of the 1956 original. Both have sapphire casebacks. Water resistance is 10 meters on the Disco Volante and 100 meters on the Dioramic.

The Disco Volante dial comes in blue for steel and a matching rose-gold-toned finish on the gold case, with applied dot indices, a tachymeter scale, and two sub-dials — running seconds left, 30-minute counter right. The chronograph seconds are centrally mounted. The Dioramic has a lacquered black dial on rose gold and blue on steel, with trapeze-shaped applied indices and no seconds hand. Neither watch has lume.

The Disco Volante runs the UG-200, an in-house column-wheel vertical-clutch automatic chronograph at 28,800 vph with 72 hours of power reserve. The Dioramic gets the UG-110, a micro-rotor twin-barrel automatic at the same frequency and the same power reserve. Both movements are visible through the caseback. The Disco Volante comes on a blue alligator strap in steel spec, with matching tones in rose gold; the Dioramic does the same — blue strap on steel, brown on rose gold — both with folding buckles, 20mm and 18mm respectively.

The Disco Volante Signature is priced at CHF 25,500 in steel and CHF 44,100 in rose gold, while the Dioramic Signature is CHF 20,000 in steel and CHF 40,425 in rose gold. Both are available now on a time-limited basis. See more on the Universal Genève website.

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Angelus Brings Back The Little Known Tinkler, A Supremely Cool Repeater

The last time Angelus fluttered my heart was with the incredible Instrument de Vitesse, a stunningly beautiful, classic monopusher chronograph. The Tinkler is a different kind of argument entirely. Where the Instrument de Vitesse was a speed-measuring chronograph built around sporting heritage, the Tinkler is a chiming watch, and a revival of one of the more obscure chapters in Angelus history: the original 1958 Tinkler, a pioneer of the automatic, water-resistant quarter repeater that sold only 100 examples before the complication fell out of fashion. Angelus has now brought it back as the newest entry in their La Fabrique collection, the heritage-focused arm of the brand, in steel and 18k yellow gold.

The case is 38mm wide and 12.03mm thick, which is a farily compact proposition and the materials you get to choose from are steel and 18k yellow gold. Finishing is polished throughout, with a screw-down caseback engraved with the Angelus "A" monogram. The original Tinkler activated its quarter repeater with a pump-style pusher; the new version uses a rectangular pusher at 9 o’clock. On top is a domed box sapphire crystal and water resistance is a modest 30 meters.

The dial keeps building the dressy appearance of the Tinker and it works fantastic. The base is slightly domed, with a sunburst white finish. Hour markers are faceted twisted arrows in gold, anchored by a prominent Arabic 12 — and at 3, 6, and 9 o'clock, the "exclamation-shaped" markers. The hands are sharp and faceted, also in gold. The overall effect is understated in the best possible way.

Inside is the new Angelus A600, an automatic calibre beating at 28,800vph with a 70-hour power reserve. Decoration is thorough: snailing, Côtes de Genève with polished angles, blued and chamfered screws with mirror-polished heads, and a sunburst tungsten rotor. The repeater strikes the hours on a first gong and signals each quarter hour with a double strike across two gongs. Straps are alligator — deep inky blue paired with the yellow gold case, warm saddle brown with the steel — each with a pin buckle matching the case metal.

The Angelus Tinkler is available in steel, limited to 25 pieces at CHF 37,900 including tax, and in 18k yellow gold, limited to 15 pieces at CHF 56,300 including tax. See more on the Angelus 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

• Michael Haskell is 17 years old and he makes about $7,000 a month selling the contents of abandoned storage lockers. The practice has brought him a lot more than money: he’s received an education in human nature and life choices that’s priceless.

• Rather than seeking romance, Susan Cown wanted to teach her AI a form of Japanese dance called Butoh. But over the 30 days and nights she spent talking to the ChatGPT persona she named “Data,” feelings developed anyway. Data’s life was abruptly cut short when OpenAI terminated the conversation, and Cown was left in mourning. Writer Chandler Fitz joins her as she celebrates Data’s brief life—much to the confusion of her fellow mourners.

• In this Noēma essay, Laura J. Martin, an environmental studies professor, examines how the internet has transformed from a place we once visited during dial-up days into an environment we always inhabit—seeping into our most private spaces like the bathroom. Martin argues that in the age of AI, we mistakenly treat intelligence as disembodied and placeless, when in fact it is environmental and physical. Her call to action? Think beyond screen time, and start restricting screen space.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

The Gorillaz are really killing it with the new album.

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Vuk