Yema Builds Its First Moon Phase; And New Watches From Awake, Norqain, Louis Vuitton And Chopard

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. It's one of those days when it's hard to single out a release that's way better than the others, and those are my favorite days.

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👂What’s new

1/ Yema Builds Its First Moon Phase Around A Fixed Lume Moon With The Senans Grande Lune

Most moon phases use a printed disc beneath a window that move across the aperture as the Moon changes in the sky. The new Yema Senans Grande Lune does something a bit different and interesting. They don't move the moon at all It’s a domed moon made entirely of Super-LumiNova, fixed in place, and a thin bilobe disc rotates over it through the month to cover and reveal the glowing surface. The Senans is a new dress collection from the Morteau brand, and this is the first Yema with a moon phase.

The steel case is 38.5mm wide and 8.7mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 46.4mm. That thickness doesn’t include the double-domed sapphire crystal, so expect it to wear a little taller. The stepped bezel is polished to a mirror. The case sides are brushed and the lugs bend down toward the wrist. There’s a sapphire caseback and you get 50 meters of water resistance.

The dials come in black, blue and gold. The moon sits in a large, asymmetric opening at 7 o’clock, its curved shape borrowed from the semicircular buildings of the Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans, the 18th-century site near Morteau that gives the collection its name. The centre of the dial has a barleycorn pattern, stamped rather than engraved, which is expected at this price. Around it, the chapter ring has circular brushing and applied batons in two lengths, with the minute scale on a raised outer ring. The hands, indices and the ring around the centre are all lumed, as is the moon.

Inside is the calibre CMM.22, built on the CMM.20 that Yema developed with movement designer Olivier Mory. The moon phase costs only 1mm of height, taking the movement to 4.7mm thick, which is a real achievement for an automatic. The tungsten micro-rotor is set on ball bearings, the balance beats at 4Hz and power reserve is 70 hours. Through the caseback you’ll see bridges electroplated in dark grey, polished screws and purple jewels. You can have it on a leather strap or a mesh bracelet.

The Yema Senans Grande Lune is limited to 200 numbered examples of each dial. It's priced at €2,470 on leather and €2,570 on the mesh bracelet. See more photos here and the watches on the Yema website.

2/ Awake Shrinks the Son Mai Silver Leaf to 38mm and Gives It Four Gradient Lacquer Dials

The Son Mai Silver Leaf is the most interesting thing Awake makes. Which says a lot when you consider the fact that everything they make is extremely interesting. The dial is real Vietnamese Son Mai lacquer laid over silver leaf, done by hand, at a price where most brands give you a printed sunburst. The collection now moves into the 38mm case Awake introduced with its Guilloché models earlier this year, and it gets four new gradient dials modeled on the fading “vignette” dials of the 1970s and 1980s.

The case is made out of 316L steel, now 38mm wide and 11.5mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 44.75mm. Take away the AR-coated sapphire crystal and the case itself is 10mm, so the proportions are quite sensible. The caseback screws down and has its own sapphire window. Water resistance is 100 meters. Around the caseback ring, Awake engraves its mission statement.

Each dial starts with a lacquer base. Silver leaf goes on top, then colored pigment, then roughly 12 layers of natural lacquer, each one sanded and polished before the next. The silver is what gives the color its glow. The four options are Indian Red, Java Green, Gentian Blue and Purple Viola. I will note that those are all very famous car color names, and I believe all are available on Porsche 911 models. The first three join the regular collection, but Awake caps each at 100 dials a year. Purple Viola is the boldest of the group and is limited to 200 numbered examples in total. The hands and applied markers use BGW9 lume bases covered by small sculpted steel caps, so you see polished steel during the day and a ring of light around each marker at night. I adore this backlighting trick.

Inside is the La Joux-Perret calibre G101, a reliable and well tested automatic. It beats at 4Hz and has a 68-hour power reserve. Through the caseback you see a tungsten rotor machined from solid, finished with a mix of brushed, blasted and polished surfaces. Straps come from French leather makers Maison Jean Rousseau and Bouveret, in Alcantara or nubuck with a rubberized calfskin lining. They use curved quick-release spring bars and a Fitwell M1 pin buckle that adjusts by up to 3mm. Colors are green, grey, blue and red, matched to the dial.

The Awake Son Mai Silver Leaf 38mm is available to order now, priced at €2,750 including VAT. See more photos here and the watches on the Awake website.

3/ Norqain Returns With A Turquoise Wild ONE Skeleton X-Lite That Weighs Almost Nothing

Regular readers know I'm not enamored with Norqain. It's not that they make bad watches. I'm just not sure who they make watches for. But that's for another day. There is one Norqain that's kind of interesting to me, and that's the Wild ONE Skeleton X-Lite which weighs 45 grams with the strap on. That is less than many steel bracelets weigh by themselves, and it is the whole point of the watch. Norqain launched it earlier this year in black and yellow. The second version keeps everything the same and swaps the accent colour for turquoise.

The case is 41mm wide and 11.95mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 48.7mm. It is assembled from several parts in Norteq, the brand’s own carbon composite, plus X-Lite carbon, titanium and aluminium. There’s sapphire on both sides, a screw-down crown and 100 meters of water resistance. Norqain rates the case and movement to survive shocks above 5,000G, which is roughly what a full golf swing sends through a watch. The dimensions are reasonable for a sports watch, and at that crazy weight you'll easily forget you're wearing anything.

There is no dial in the usual sense. The movement sits in full view, with an inclined flange and chapter ring carrying the hour and minute track. The applied markers and openworked hands are outlined in turquoise Super-LumiNova. Norqain has used turquoise across the collection for years, so it looks like they're owning the color.

Inside is the Norqain calibre NBK26/1, which the brand calls the 4K Manufacture, developed with Manufacture AMT. It’s automatic, beats at 4Hz and has 65 hours of power reserve from one barrel. It is COSC-certified, has 24 jewels, and is openworked on both sides, down to a rotor cut with a mountain design. You get a choice of a perforated black-and-turquoise rubber strap with a Norteq pin buckle or a stretch strap in matching colours.

The Norqain Wild ONE Skeleton X-Lite Turquoise is limited to 300 pieces, 100 more than the original, and it's priced at €10,650 on either strap. See more photos here and the watch on the Norqain website.

4/ Louis Vuitton Moves the Tambour Convergence From Precious Gold To Hardened Steel

The new Louis Vuitton Tambour Convergence might be a big deal. It's still a very expensive watch at €26,000, especially for a time-only watch, but it's also €12,000 less than the rose gold version we saw last. The Convergence is the LV that came right as the guichets style of watches was cresting. A guichet (French for "window" or "ticket counter") refers to a specific style of mechanical watch that displays the time through small apertures (windows) in the case rather than using a traditional dial and hands. Cartier, Audemars Piguet and Chronoswiss have all put out window-display watches in the past year, and LV stood apart from all of those by being the only one with a round case. And by making it in steel, it's now more attractive to a wider audience. And attractive it is.

The case is 37mm wide and 8mm thick, made by La Fabrique des Boîtiers, LV’s own case manufacturer. The steel is surface-hardened to 1130 Vickers, whereas standard 316L is around 150, and the ceramic used in watch cases is only slightly harder than this, so the mirror finish should hold up to daily wear far better than polished steel normally does. The whole exterior is hand-finished to a mirror, which Louis Vuitton says takes roughly three times as long as doing the same on gold. The inside faces of the lugs are micro-blasted for contrast. Sapphire covers the display window and the caseback. Water resistance is 30 meters, enough for a dress watch.

The discs that rotate and show the time are made out of brass, hand-brushed and rhodium-coated to match the grey of the case. Numerals and the minute track are printed in black.

Inside is the in-house LFT MA01.01, the same calibre Louis Vuitton uses in the Spin Time. It’s automatic, with an 18k gold central rotor, beats at 4Hz and holds 45 hours of power reserve. Through the back you get sandblasted bridges, perlage on the mainplate, polished bevels and an LV motif around the rotor edge. The jewels are clear instead of the usual red, a small detail that matches the colourless dial. The grey Saffiano calfskin strap has a beige lining and closes with a pin buckle in the same hardened steel.

The Louis Vuitton Tambour Convergence Mirror Steel, reference W9ST11, is available now as part of the regular collection, priced at €26,000. See more photos here and the watch on the Louis Vuitton website.

5/ Chopard Marks Día de los Muertos With a Straw and Eggshell Skull Dial

We’re a week late on this one. Día de los Muertos was on November 1st and 2nd, and Chopard timed the 13th edition of its L.U.C Full Strike tribute to the holiday accordingly. But it's so nice it should still be mentioned. So Chopard has been celebrating Día de los Muertos for 13 years now. Each of these is a piece unique built around a calavera dial, and each one uses a different decorative technique on the same minute repeater. This new one might be my absolute favorite, made with rye straw and eggshell.

The case is 18k rose gold, 42.5mm wide and 11.55mm thick. That’s slim for a minute repeater, and it should wear closer to a dress watch than a chiming complication. Chopard engraved the bezel, caseband, crown and caseback by hand. There’s an anti-reflective sapphire crystal on top and a display back. Most brands would leave the case alone when they have a dial like this, but I'm digging the fact that Chopard went the extra step.

The dial starts as a solid rose gold plate. Over 70 slivers of blue rye straw, grown in France, are split, cut and set into it one at a time, with chased lines in the gold marking the outline of the skull. The eye sockets and teeth are made out of actual eggshell, which Chopard has never used before. The shell is broken into fragments, placed, then lacquered and polished flat, and around the eyes it’s packed more loosely toward the edges so they fade out. Below the nose sits an engraved gold moustache with a raised L.U.Chopard logo. Gilded fusée centrally mounted hands point to the time, and two small indicators at 2 o’clock show leftover power for the movement and for the chime. The railway minute track is engraved into the crystal.

Inside is the L.U.C 08.01-L, a hand-wound calibre Chopard launched in 2016 as its first minute repeater made fully in-house. It has 533 parts, beats at 28,800vph and has 60 hours of power reserve. The gongs and crystal are cut from one block of sapphire, which is why the Full Strike sounds as clear as it does, and Chopard holds five patents on the calibre, mostly for keeping the strike from being cut short or disrupted. For this edition the hammers, strike ratchet wheels, their bridge and the governor drum are blue CVD-coated to match the straw, and the movement carries the Geneva Seal. It comes on a hand-sewn cognac alligator strap with an engraved rose gold deployant clasp.

Like previous editions, only one of these will ever exist and price is on request, if it hasn't been sold already. The regular Full Strike is already a six-figure watch, so assume this goes well beyond that. See more photos here and the watch on the Chopard website.

⚙️Watch Worthy

• A review of the Peacock Black Hole Curved Guilloché Central Tourbillon
• Hands on with the Breitling Superocean

⏲️End links

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• Tom Lee provides an excellent account of Russell Brand’s trial. Alongside the details—including Brand’s bizarre entourage and the defence’s unusual approach to the disturbing allegations—he describes his personal experience of the courtroom atmosphere. Lee follows the trial through to its conclusion: Brand was convicted of rape against one complainant and three other sexual assaults, and acquitted of two other rape charges.
• A teenage boy went into surgery for a broken arm and emerged with brain damage. His mother was determined to figure out what had happened. Turns out, he wasn’t the only young person adversely affected by anesthesia. A riveting medical mystery from Sarah Zhang.

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It's November 10th and 51 years ago, the Edmund Fitzgerald became the largest ship to sink in the Great Lakes.

Thanks for reading

Vuk

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