Citizen brings its colorful, automatic NJ015 ‘Tsuyosa’ collection to the United States this month, broadening the watchmaker’s domestic mechanical offerings beyond its pricier automatic Series 8 and automatic dive models.
And with each watch priced at $450, the collection (which Citizen introduced in Europe and elsewhere last year) creates Citizen’s first entry level range of steel-cased automatic watches for the U.S. market.
Citizen brings its much-touted NJ015 Automatic ‘Tsuyosa’ collection to the United States.
The new NJ015 collection, called Tsuyosa, (Japanese for ‘strength’) is powered by Citizen’s Caliber 8210, an automatic movement with a 21,600 vph frequency and a forty-hour power reserve.
Citizen also opens up a view into the movement on each watch through a clear sapphire caseback.
Citizen is offering Tsuyosa in five sun-ray pattern dial options, including blue, yellow, green, turquoise and black, each displaying time with baton-
style indexes.
The watches even offer a magnifying date lens, which is a feature rarely seen on watches in this price range.
These are everyday-wear models. Each arrives with a moderately slim 40mm by 11.7mm brush-finished steel cases and integrated steel bracelet.
Citizen polishes the bracelet’s center links to add a bit of luxury to the contemporary styled Tsuyosa.
This weekend, Ulysse Nardin unveiled its latest dive watch, the Ocean Race Diver Chronograph, as the watchmaker joined the six-month-long Ocean Race during a stopover in Newport, Rhode Island.
The new Ulysse Nardin Ocean Race Diver Chronograph.
Ulysse Nardin launched the limited-edition watch in collaboration with The Ocean Race in part to celebrate the historic race’s fiftieth anniversary. In addition, the watch pays tribute to both partners’ commitment to protecting the oceans.
The Ocean Race, which was first launched in 1973 from Portsmouth, England, was originally known as the Whitbread Round the World Race, then The Volvo Ocean Race. The global competition is now known as The Ocean Race.
Water-resistant to 300 meters, the Ocean Race Diver Chronograph’s 44mm sandblasted black DLC titanium case houses the superb in-house chronograph caliber UN-150, which is visible through the sapphire crystal case back and bears the number ‘50’ in tribute to this race’s anniversary.
Ulysse Nardin has also placed the Ocean Race logo to the ceramic component on the rubber strap’s pin buckle. (See additional technical specifications below).
Recycled finish
Referencing Ulysse Nardin’s eco-friendly aims, the watchmaker created the watch’s unidirectional bezel with a Carbonium finish, which contains fibers recycled from airplane fuselage offcuts.
As the Official Timekeeper of the race, Ulysse Nardin is responsible for the official timings of the various legs and the start countdowns, but it is also a partner of the 24-Hour Speed Challenge, in which the crew that covers the greatest distance in 24 hours wins.
In addition to this role as Official Timer, Ulysse Nardin is also a partner of Time to Act, a program that aims to reduce the devastating impact of pollution, climate change, and industrial overfishing on our oceans.
As part of this program, and alongside the Racing with Purpose and 11th Hour Racing organizations, The Ocean Race is undertaking a sustainability program. During the race, the teams will gather data on the impact of climate change and plastic pollution. Ulysse Nardin notes that the initiative will result in “the most data ever collected as part of a sporting event.”
The Ocean Race crews sail from Newport on May 21, continuing to Aarhus (Denmark), the Kiel Fly-By (Germany) and The Hague (Netherlands) before the grand finale, which is set to take place in Genoa (Italy) at the end of June.
Ulysse Nardin will offer the Ocean Race Diver Chronograph as a limited edition of 100 timepieces. Price: $15,700.
Movement: Calibre UN-150 self-winding Manufacture Chronograph, silicon escape wheel, anchor and balance-spring. Frequency: 4 Hz / oscillating at 28,800 vph.
Dial: Sandblasted black, 30-minutes counter at 3 o’clock, 12-hours counter and date at 6 o’clock, small seconds at 9 o’clock. Rhodium-plated indexes and hands with Super-LumiNova.
Case: 44mm sandblasted and satin-finished black DLC titanium, Carbonium concave unidirectional rotating bezel with domed sapphire crystal, black DLC titanium open sapphire case back, ‘50’ logo in tribute to the 50th anniversary of The Ocean Race, 300 meters of water resistance.
Strap: Black rubber strap with black ceramic element at 6 o’clock, engraved with The Ocean Race logo, black ceramic pin buckle.
Doxa honors American adventure novelist Clive Cussler with a specially finished version of its SUB 300T dive watch. Cussler’s novels were highly influential in spotlighting Doxa watches, especially as depicted on the wrist of fictional adventure hero Dirk Pitt, who wore an orange-dialed Doxa while exploring or on a mission.
The new Doxa SUB 300T Clive Cussler (above) retains all the technical specifications you expect from this pioneering Swiss maker of professional-grade dive watches (see specifications below), but adds a series of distinctive finishes and design choices aimed at creating a weathered look to its 42mm case, dial and even the strap.
To create the aged appearance, Doxa has opted to replace the SUB 300T’s traditional, late-1960s dial with a dial that looks like a vintage compass, much like Dirk Pitt might use.
In addition, the watch’s case, bracelet, clasp, and pin buckle are made using steel that Doxa has purposefully finished to appear aged, as if Pitt himself once wore the watch.
Doxa also honors Cussler with a series of unique dial design features, notably by finishing the dates 7, 15, and 31 in red to commemorate the author’s birthday of July 15th, 1931.
Doxa also engraves each watch with its own exclusive number on the side of the bezel to indicating authenticity.
“I extend my heartfelt appreciation to DOXA for honoring my father’s legacy with a watch that exemplifies his courage, originality, and love of exploration,” says Dirk Cussler, author and the son of Clive Cussler.
On the back of the watch Doxa has engraved the names of shipwrecks and other historical artifacts that have been discovered or surveyed by NUMA.
Doxa has earmarked a percentage of sales from this special edition Clive Cussler watch for donation to NUMA, the National Underwater and Marine Agency Cussler founded in 1979. On the back of the watch Doxa has engraved the names of shipwrecks and other historical artifacts that have been discovered or surveyed by NUMA.
“Cussler’s internationally famed novels were a natural platform for Doxa watches, highlighting them as essential tools for his heroic characters,” says Jan Edocs, Doxa CEO.
Doxa supplies each SUB 300T Clive Cussler with an aged stainless steel coated “Beads of Rice” bracelet with a folding clasp and ratcheting wetsuit extension, as well as a beige NATO strap.
An additional black FKM rubber strap with an aged stainless steel coating folding clasp is available for purchase.
Price: $2,690.
Specifications: Doxa SUB 300T Clive Cussler
(Ref. 840.80.031.15)
Case: 42.50 mm x 44.50 mm x 14 mm steel with aged stainless steel coating, screw-down crown, water resistance to 1,200 meters (4,000 feet), screw-down engraved case back, flat sapphire crystal, unidirectional rotating bezel for calculating and monitoring no-decompression dive times, helium release valve.
Movement: Automatic (ETA-based) with a 38-hour power reserve.
Dial: Vintage compass design, hours, minutes, seconds and date display.
Bracelet: Aged stainless steel coating “Beads of Rice” bracelet, folding clasp with ratcheting wetsuit extension, additional beige NATO strap. Black rubber strap with aged stainless steel coating folding clasp and wetsuit extension also available for $490 extra.
The annual California Mille classic car rally ran in late April with Chopard again (for the fifth time) as the rally’s Official Timer. In addition to its timing duties, the Swiss watchmaker has launched a commemorative watch to mark the 2023 event: The Mille Miglia GTS Automatic Chrono California Mille 32nd Edition, a 44mm Lucent Steel certified chronometer dressed in grey with Hagerty Motorsports black and blue racing stripes.
The Chopard Mille Miglia GTS Automatic Chrono California Mille 32nd Edition.
As is typical of Chopard’s always notable racing-themed chronographs, the dial on this latest example is meant to recall the dashboard of a classic car. Thus, you’ll see the bright red accents on the California Mille logo and the tip of central sweep-seconds hand contrasting nicely with the grey dial and the racing stripes.
Additional racing themed designs are seen around the dial, with the watch’s thin black bezel displaying a tachymeter scale with contrasting white graduations that can be used to measure average speed ranging from 60 to 400 km/h by means of the chronograph seconds hand.
Inside, Chopard provides an COSC-certified ETA Valjoux-based automatic caliber with a 48-hour power reserve. Sturdy mushroom-type pushers are knurled on top to assist with a grip while in use. Likewise, Chopard adds a large crown with a ratcheted edge to ensure a good grip.
Finally, the Mille Miglia GTS Automatic Chrono California Mille 32nd Edition timepiece is fitted with a black calfskin strap lined with rubber. In keeping with the codes established at the birth of the Mille Miglia collection, the lining is patterned like the tread of 1960s Dunlop Racing tires.
Chopard offers its Mille Miglia GTS Automatic Chrono California Mille 32nd Edition as a limited edition of thirty pieces.
Blancpain adds small seconds and moon phase functions to its Ladybird collection of jeweled watches. Dubbed Ladybird Colors, the collection offers new hues as well, with models sporting summer-ready midnight blue, peacock green, forest green, lilac or turquoise numerals on textured mother-of-pearl dials.
One of two new models in the new Blancpain Ladybird Colors collection. A second model features a small seconds display.
In addition to their new, colorful dials, each Ladybird Colors watch is set with seventy diamonds on the bezel and lugs.
Offered in either red gold or white gold 34.9mm cases, each watch in the series offers leather straps colored to match the new dial accents.
Note that the numerals on the Ladybird Colors dials are asymmetrical, a style also seen on the tapering diamond-setting around the small seconds and moon-phase indicators.
As these are Blancpain watches, all are powered by a mechanical movement, namely automatic Calibre 1163 for the small seconds version and automatic Calibre 1163L for the moon-phase model.
The caseback of the green Ladybird Colors Small Seconds in a red gold case, showing automatic Caliber 1163, with its open-work rotor.
Each movement offers a four-day power reserve and a silicon balance spring.
Blancpain nicely finishes the movement, including an open-work gold oscillating weight in the gold color that matches case metal.
Prices: $34,100 (moon phase) and $32,000 (small seconds).
And with each watch priced at $450, the collection (which Citizen introduced in Europe and elsewhere last year) creates Citizen’s first entry level range of steel-cased automatic watches for the U.S. market. 
Offered in either red gold or white gold 34.9mm cases, each watch in the series offers leather straps colored to match the new dial accents.
