Yema Introduces Brand New Granvelle CMM.20 Collection; Delma Releases Trio Of Black Montego Chronos; ZRC Grands Fonds Heritage With New Smoke Dial; Breguet Continues 250th Anniversary Celebration

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Any day we get a brand new collection is a good day. And when it’s from Yema, I’m even happier with that.

In this issue:

• Yema Introduces The Brand New Architecture-Inspired Granvelle CMM.20 Collection

• Delma Releases A Trio Of Black DLC Versions Of Their Montego Chronograph

• The ZRC Grands Fonds Heritage Looks Best With The New Smoke Dial

• Breguet Continues 250th Anniversary Celebration With Tradition Seconde Rétrograde 7035

👂What’s new

1/

Yema Introduces The Brand New Architecture-Inspired Granvelle CMM.20 Collection

Over the past several months, we’ve had a couple of major releases from brands at all price points that pushed the idea of shaped watches as an interesting proposition. Serica released the wonderful oval Parade. Echo/neutra had the great Rivanera. One could argue that the square Patek Cubitus was also experimenting with shapes. It was clear that this was a start of a trend. I did not, however, expect Yema to join in on the trend, since they are so well known for their tool and dive watches. Sure, they seem to be in the midst of a major collection restructuring, so this is the perfect time to introduce a shaped watch. This is the new Yema Granvelle, inspired by and named after Granvelle Palace in Besançon, the 16th-century Renaissance building that houses the Museum of Time. This is really cool.

While everything about this watch is different, the case will catch your eye first. It’s cushion shape case, one that looks like it is a squared circle, that has pretty good proportions — 39mm wide, just 8.6mm thick and, despite the seemingly short looking lugs, a lug-to-lug of 47mm. The finishes are just fantastic. The flat bezel on top and lugs get vertical brushing, with highly polished bevels and a really, really cool polished coin-edge mid-case. On top is a flat sapphire crystal, on the side is a really interesting cushion-shaped crown that doesn’t screw down, and you get 50 meters of water resistance.

Then, you get to the dial, which is just wonderful. On the edge of the dial is a slanted chapter ring done in stainless steel, with hour indices deeply cut into the brushed surface, for a really cool look. Pointing to those cut out indices are polished and faceted dauphine-style hands. In the center of the dial you get a stamped guilloche-like pattern, finished with a sunray brushing, making the whole center interact with the light in the possible way. There are three choices for the color on that central part — dark grey, deep blue, and forest green.

Inside, you’ll find a really lovely movement. It’s the proprietary CMM.20 micro-rotor movement, developed in collaboration with Olivier Mory, and built in Yema’s new factory in Morteau, France, just a few kilometer from the iconic Swiss town of Le Locle. The movement bets at 4Hz and has a 70 hour power reserve. It’s regulated to -3/+7 seconds per day, and it has galvanised rhodium-plated bridges, decorated with a Côtes de Genève sunray pattern. The watches come on brown calfskin leather straps that close with a deployant clasp.

The new Yema Granvelle is available for order now, and deliveries starting at the start of May, priced at €1,990. See more on the Yema website.

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Delma Releases A Trio Of Black DLC Versions Of Their Montego Chronograph

Delma has been making great tool watches for more than 100 years. No, really, they celebrated their 100th anniversary last year. And while they might be best known for their quirky and chunky divers, but they also make a handful of pretty good and very classic chronographs. With clear vintage inspiration, the Delma Montego Chronograph Automatic is an interesting option if you’re looking for a 1960s-racing-inspired chrono. Now, Delma is expanding the collection with three new Delma Montego Black Editions.

The Montego is Delma’s very traditional chronograph, and it shows in the measurements and construction. Made out of stainless steel, now black DLC coated in this new edition, it measures 42mm wide and 16.2mm thick. On top is a fixed stainless steel bezel, also with a black coating, with an engraved tachymeter scale in white. The lugs of the watch are super interesting, straight but super short, almost like a C-shaped case would have. You’ll find sapphire crystals on top and bottom, and water resistance is very good for a chronograph — 200 meters.

All of that is familiar from regular Montego models, with the update of the case color, and the new version gets a black dial with three variants. The differences are quite small, set apart only by the highlight colors — yellow, red and cyan — which show up on the minute markers and around the three subdials. They are positioned at 6, 9 and 12 o’clock, while at 3 o’clock you’ll find the day and date indicator underneath the Delma logo.

Inside, not much of a surprise. It’s the Sellita SW500 automatic chronograph, a clone of the legendary Valjoux 7750. This means it beats at 4Hz and has a 48 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a stainless steel bracelet that has the same black DLC coating as the case.

The new Delma Montego Black Editions are available now, priced at €3.151,95 (that very specific price is likely due to the automatic inclusion of my 25% VAT in Croatia). See more on the Delma website.

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The ZRC Grands Fonds Heritage Looks Best With The New Smoke Dial

Unless you’re a die-hard dive watch fanatic, there’s a pretty strong chance you don’t really know what Zuccolo Rochet & Cie (ZRC) is all about. To be honest, even I kind of learned about them some time last year. ZRC released their first watch in 1959 as a deep-dive watch made for the French Navy, the Grands Fonds 300. The Securicode followed in 1965 and was best known for its dial calculator that allowed for keeping track of advanced immersion times at various depths. And while they released their first watch in ‘59, but they’ve been around for much longer, selling bracelets and straps. In fact, the company has been around for 120 years, an anniversary they celebrated in a good way last year. And since they reintroduced so many watches last year, this year we’re getting smaller updates to already existing lines. And the most recent one comes to the very funky Grands Fonds Heritage, with a very smoky dial.

The ZRC Grands Fonds Heritage is a thoroughly weird watch. Its size, measuring 39mm wide and 14mm thick, are the most regular part of the watch. The case has a hexagonal case, with super short lugs, and a super-unusual crown positioned at 6 o’clock. It’s surrounded by an articulated end lug that protects the crown from bumps and makes sure the screw-down crown can’t be operated on wrist. On top is a domed sapphire crystal, surrounded by a really interesting undirectional bezel that has a black ceramic insert with a diving scale indicated by dots. Not sure it’s useful much, but it sure is cool. Water resistance is guaranteed to 300 meters, but ZRC says they’ve tested it to 1,500 meters.

The setup of the dial remains overall the asme, but it now gets a really, really nice brown gradient dial that fades to a darker brown to the edges. This is paired with some pretty funky details, like the triangle ZRC logo at 12, the oversized pencil hands with yellow lume and really nice white printed hour markers and numerals at the cardinal positions. There’s a lot of writing on this dial, but it really works for me.

Inside, you’ll find the rather standard Sellita SW200-1, which beats at 4Hz, has a 41 hour power reserve and it’s adjusted by ZRC to be accurate to +/-7 seconds per day. The watch comes on a sand colored FKM tropic rubber strap.

The new ZRC Grands Fonds Heritage Smoke is available now, as part of the permanent collection, and it’s priced at CHF 3,090. See more on the ZRC website.

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Breguet Continues 250th Anniversary Celebration With Tradition Seconde Rétrograde 7035

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. A couple of weeks ago, they introduced the Classique Souscription 2025, paying tribute to the Souscription Pocket Watches. Now, they are continuing the celebration with a watch from one of their quirkiest collections, the Tradition. This is the new Breguet Tradition Seconde Rétrograde 7035, done in gold and blue.

The Tradition came in a number of sizes. When it was first introduced in 2005, ti came in a 37mm case, growing over the years to a 40mm case. This new release, however, brings back a more compact size. The case, made out 18k Breguet gold which has a warmer yellow hue due to more use of copper, silver and palladium, measures 38mm wide and 12.6mm thick. And it has all the classic Breguet hallmarks, including the welded lugs with screw bars and the finely fluted caseband. You get sapphire crystals on top and bottom, a flat crown at 3 o’clock and a water resistance of 30 meters.

The dial, also, is in line with what you might expect from a Tradition. Like models before it, it has a small dial at 12 o’clock to indicate the time, suspended over the movement, which has an engine-turned gold base with the 250th anniversary ” Quai de l’Horloge” motif. The base is coated in tinted, translucent, blue Grand Feu enamel and it has Breguet Arabic numerals and Breguet open-tipped hands in 18K Breguet gold. To the left of the main dial, you will see the retrograde seconds, indicated by a blued steel baton hand.

The rest of the face of the watch is dedicated to the view of the calibre 505SR movement. It has the recognizable stepped bridges, gears and central barrel, with the regulating organ on the front side, equipped with an anti-shock system that mimics the old “pare-chute” device invented by Breguet. Out back you see the central crescent moon-shaped rotor, made of vertically brushed platinum. The rest of the movement is gilded in Breguet gold with shot-blasted and straight brushed surfaces, with polished bevels and blued screws. The movement has a Nivachron balance spring, beats at 3Hz and has a 50 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a navy blue alligator leather strap.

The new Breguet Tradition Seconde Rétrograde 7035 edition 250th Anniversary is limited to 250 pieces and priced at CHF 43,000. 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

• Nicholas Russell writes an incisive essay on the state of A24, the distribution company-turned-studio known for films such as Everything Everywhere All at Once, Uncut Gems, The Brutalist, Past Lives, The Whale, and Minari. During a period when moviegoers craved originality and thoughtfulness over the latest Marvel flick, A24 emerged as a champion of cinema. Critics, however, see a “zeitgeist-chasing machine that hawks products rather than art.” Russell examines the film industry’s current landscape, A24 as a brand that produces and markets slick and sophisticated content, and why this has worked in Hollywood.

• A résumé of deep religious education, frontline pastoral experience, parish management and Vatican governance — along with a nudge from Pope Francis — put Robert Prevost on the fast track. The New York Times has a great look into how we got Pope Leo.

• Katie McLean thought her marriage to a celebrated surgeon would last a lifetime. Then her body was discovered in a pond. Inside the suburban romance turned nightmare that rocked the town of Dover.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

Hitchcock created the template for what became the "zombie movie" with The Birds. Put a disparate cast of characters in one location, provide an existential threat trying to claw it's way in, and watch the personalities collide with each other under the stress. Romero took that, and made it his own. This video is a good introduction to the zombie genre.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk