Tudor Shrinks The Black Bay Chrono To 39mm; Rado's DiaStar Skeleton In Three Summer Colors; Oris Pays Homage To Lou Gehrig; Favre Leuba Deep Raider Revival Orange; Zenith Teams Up With Naoya Hida

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Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. What an incredible lineup of watches today. Not a single one I don’t like. But those DiaStars are just fantastic!

In this issue

• Tudor Shrinks The Black Bay Chronograph Down To 39mm With A Bold Yellow Bumblebee Dial

• Rado Gives The DiaStar Skeleton Three Reasons To Wear Bright Colors This Summer

• Oris Adds Lou Gehrig To Its Baseball Hall Of Fame Big Crown Series

• Christiaan van der Klaauw Brings the Eclipse Dial Back for Reijersen's Taste of Time Festival

• Zenith Teams Up With Naoya Hida For A Double Signed G.F.J. Calibre 135

👂What’s new

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Tudor Shrinks The Black Bay Chronograph Down To 39mm With A Bold Yellow Bumblebee Dial

Tudor's "Daring Watches" range has been doing interesting work lately — the pink Inter Miami Chrono and the Flamingo blue edition proved there's demand for a Black Bay Chrono that commits to color. This is exactly what we’re getting with the new Bumblebeem which comes in a bright and quite unexpected yellow. But the dial is only half the story. More importantly, Tudor is shrinking down the Black Bay chronograph to a much, much more wearable size. They’re launching the smaller chrono with a very bright color, but you know that regular colors are coming soon. Those will sell like crazy.

The case comes in at 39mm wide, 13.1mm thick, and with a 47mm lug-to-lug — meaningfully more compact than the outgoing 41mm, which measured 14.2mm thick with a 49.9mm lug-to-lug. That 1.1mm reduction in thickness doesn't sound dramatic until you remember how tall the flanks of the older Chrono appeared on the wrist. The anodised aluminium tachymeter bezel and domed sapphire crystal carry over unchanged. The pushers remain screwed, which gives you the 200 meters of water resistance.

The dial is matte yellow, but a yellow that will most pleasantly burn your retinas. Tudor has used black sub-counters, hands, and applied indices against it, filling everything with white Super-LumiNova. The contrast between the matte yellow field and the blackened elements is sharp and the whole thing is very loud, but it's coherent.

Inside is the calibre MT5813, the same one you’ll find in the larger version. The movement is based on the Breitling B01 architecture, beats at 4Hz with a column wheel, has COSC certification, and offers around 70 hours of power reserve. The Bumblebee comes on a three-link steel bracelet, with no rivets just to note, with a folding clasp and the T-Fit micro-adjustment system.

The Tudor Black Bay Chrono 39 Bumblebee is part of the "Daring Watches" collection, which means it won't be sitting in every Tudor boutique window, but it's a permanent addition rather than a limited edition. Price is set at €6,200. See more on the Tudor website.

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Rado Gives The DiaStar Skeleton Three Reasons To Wear Bright Colors This Summer

The DiaStar Original has been on quite a roll over the past several days. Since the skeleton version arrived, they’ve has been expanding the lineup steadily. And now we’re getting three summer limited editions in blue, green, and red. The concept is straightforward: same distinctive oval case, same openworked calibre, with great color combinations.

All three share identical dimensions: 38mm wide, 45mm long, and 11.9mm thick. The convex bezel is made out of Ceramos, Rado's proprietary ceramic-metal composite, with a radially brushed surface on the blue and red models, and a yellow-gold PVD coating on the green. The blue and red versions pair the Ceramos bezel with a stainless steel case and caseback; the green matches PVD coating across all metal components. A faceted sapphire crystal rises above the dial in the DiaStar tradition, with a display back showing the movement. Water resistance is 100 meters.

Each dial is surrounded by a ring that takes its colour from the edition: blue, green, or red. The floating index design and the rotating anchor logo, both signature DiaStar elements, are still present here. Lume choices are deliberately contrasted: the blue model uses yellow Super-LumiNova on rhodium-coloured hands and indices; the green has red lume with gold-coloured hands; the red gets green lume with rhodium hands.

The calibre is the R808, an ETA-based automatic running at 21,600vph with a Nivachron hairspring and 80-hour power reserve. It's regulated in five positions. Each watch comes on a colour-matched rubber strap with Rado's EasyClip quick-change system and a stainless steel pin buckle.

The Rado DiaStar Original Skeleton Summer Editions are each limited to 555 pieces, with the edition number engraved on the caseback. The blue and red models are priced at €2,500; the green PVD edition is priced at €2,750. See more on the Rado website.

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Oris Adds Lou Gehrig To Its Baseball Hall Of Fame Big Crown Series

Oris has now released three baseball-themed Big Crown Pointer Date limited editions, and there’s a clear pattern: each watch is built around a specific legend, with the production number tied directly to a career stat. The Roberto Clemente was limited to 3,000 pieces for his career hits; the Hank Aaron edition was made in 2,297 pieces for his runs batted in. This new Lou Gehrig model will be made in 2,130 pieces — the number of consecutive games he played for the New York Yankees, a record that stood for over 50 years.

The case is the standard steel 40mm Big Crown, 12.2mm thick, with the fluted bezel and oversized crown that define the model. Finishing alternates between brushed and polished surfaces. On top is a domed sapphire crystal while the caseback is engraved with Gehrig delivering his 1939 farewell speech at Yankee Stadium. Water resistance is 50 meters, which is modest.

Even I, who don’t really know much about baseball, can tell that the dial is heavily inspired by the Yankees. The brushed grey background references the team's road uniform. Hour numerals and indices are outlined in blue with white Super-LumiNova fill; the minute track adds blue-framed lumed markers throughout. The pointer date hand tip is blue, and Gehrig's retired number 4 appears in blue on the black peripheral date track. Cathedral-style hour and minute hands have green-emission SLN, as do the indices and markers.

Inside is the Oris calibre 754, a modified Sellita SW 200-1. It runs at 28,800vph with a 41-hour power reserve. The watch ships with two straps: a brown double-stitched suede that looks a bit like baseball glove leather, and a NATO in Yankees pinstripe. Both close with steel buckles.

The Oris Big Crown Pointer Date Lou Gehrig Limited Edition is priced at CHF 2,400, limited to 2,130 pieces. A portion of proceeds benefits the Lou and Eleanor Gehrig Family Foundation. See more on the Oris website.

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Favre Leuba Deep Raider Revival Gets A Very Vintage Inspired Orange Colorway

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Favre Leuba has been around since 1737 but has had a complicated relationship with staying in business. They relaunched with 22 new watches at Geneva Watch Days in 2024, and since then have been cranking out a steady stream of new releases. Now, they’re expading the Deep Raider collection with the Revival Orange which borrows its colorway from the Bathy 160, the brand's 1970s dive watch.

The stainless steel case measures 39mm wide and 12.75mm thick, with softly curved sides and a mix of brushed and polished surfaces. Those are pretty decent dimensions in a world of 40mm+ and 13mm+ divers. A unidirectional rotating bezel is set with a black sapphire crystal insert that has orange accents, vintage-style typography, and a luminous triangle at 12 o'clock. Water resistance is 300 meters.

The dial follows the Revival's crosshair layout with a sunray finish. Orange details run through the whole watch. The date sits between four and five o'clock. You get a sword-shaped hour hand, arrow-tipped minute and seconds hands, all with Super-LumiNova.

The movement is the automatic FLD01 calibre, based on the La Joux-Perret LJP-G100, running at 28,800 vibrations per hour with a 68-hour power reserve. The integrated five-link bracelet has a very retro feel and you get an additional orange fabric strap.

The Favre Leuba Deep Raider Revival Orange is priced at €2,900 and available now. See more on the Favre Leuba website.

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Zenith Teams Up With Naoya Hida For A Double Signed G.F.J. Calibre 135

The G.F.J. launched at Watches & Wonders 2025 as Zenith's tribute to founder Georges Favre-Jacot, built around the revived Calibre 135, the most decorated observatory movement in history. A year later, the G.F.J. serves as a launch vehicle for Zenith’s Double Signed Program in which they plan on collaborating with other watchmakers to create double signed watches. This first one happens with Naoya Hida & Co., the Tokyo-based independent whose watches are extremely desired, especially by collectors outside of Japan. Hida's affinity for mid-century dress watches and his obsessive attention to typography and proportion translate naturally onto a watch whose entire identity is built around a 1948 chronometer movement.

The platinum case measures 39.15mm wide and 10.5mm thick, with stepped lugs and a slim polished bezel that give it an architectural quality. There are sapphire crystals on top and bottom of the case. Water resistance is 50 meters.

But it’s the dial where Hida's involvement becomes obvious. Solid silver, with indices, numerals, and all text hand-engraved by Keisuke Kano and filled with deep blue urushi lacquer. The hour and minute hands are machined from solid gold and hand-polished, while the small seconds at 6 is heat-blued steel.

Inside is the updated Calibre 135, beating at 18,000vph with a Breguet overcoil hairspring and Charles Fleck's double-arrow regulator, both retained from the original 1948 design. Power reserve has grown to 72 hours, stop-seconds has been added, and every movement is individually regulated to +/−2 seconds per day before COSC certification. The movement is finished with broad Geneva stripes, hand-chamfering, and a dark ruthenium treatment with gold-coloured engravings. Three straps are included: a Himeji Kurozan leather with urushi lacquer finish, a handcrafted Wagyu leather from Kyoto, and a deep indigo Kaihara denim. All three close with a platinum pin buckle engraved with the G.F.J. emblem.

The new Zenith G.F.J. Calibre 135 Double Signed with Naoya Hida & Co. is limited to 10 pieces and priced at CHF 58,900. The website says the watch is sold out, but they might have some in stores. Maybe? See more on the Zenith 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

• Modernist architecture—with all its glass, steel, and concrete—baffled America. American artist Alan Dunn, a longtime New Yorker contributor, captured that bewilderment perfectly with his incisive cartoons. In this adapted excerpt of his new book, Alan Dunn: The Cartoonist as Architectural Critic, Gabriele Neri shows how Dunn elevated the art of cartooning into sharp architectural criticism.

• A journalist has conversations with three Britons who, after life-changing incidents, have fully active minds but cannot move or speak, and can communicate only via the blink of an eye. This is a story about the remarkable capacities of the human mind.

• Who among us hasn’t wished for sunshine or hoped for rain? For Harper’s Magazine, Wyatt Williams brings us a lyrical look at weather manipulation. Surprisingly, some attempting to alter the weather are doing so in the name of God. Yes, you read that right. Humans have been trying to make it rain since we started walking the earth and, even with the benefit of the latest technology, our results have been questionable at best.

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One video you have to watch today

Jon Stewart is just getting better and better.

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Vuk