What would happen if a watch brand makes a chronograph that looks almost exactly like a simple, time only watch? You end up with the most low-key, under-the-radar, stealth chronograph on the market: the De Bethune DB Eight!
Watches and Wonders 2024, has closed it’s doors on an exhibition that was bigger than ever with a record 54 exhibiting brands. Plus, there were many brands exhibiting offsite in hotels and their own premises. here are a few of Ian Skellern’s highlights from Watches and Wonders week 2024
The primary goal of the De Bethune DB28XS was to address collectors’ requests for a smaller version of the watch. Mission accomplished. The DB28 Starry Seas is seriously slim by De Bethune standards. And then there’s that sensational dial!
At Dubai Watch Week 2023, the DBD Evergreen arrived as De Bethune’s final flourish of the year. Unarguably more mainstream than the black-and-pink Season 2, the Evergreen channels the dial color of our moment in tandem with a rugged and wieldy grade 5 titanium case.
When the De Bethune DB28 Tourbillon Deadbeat Seconds launched in 2012 it represented the upper echelon of the catalog and could be considered something approaching a brand flagship. And in Tim Mosso’s opinion, it certainly has the presence of a flagship.
It’s been more than ten years since the De Bethune DB28 won the Aiguille d’Or at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève. Effectively the “Best Picture” at the “Oscars” of watchmaking, this recognition placed De Bethune among the elite company of Aiguille d’Or winners such as F.P. Journe, Greubel Forsey, Breguet, Audemars Piguet, A. Lange & Söhne, and Patek Philippe. A decade removed from its Hollywood ending, the DB28 remains a grail watch in every sense.
De Bethune celebrated the tenth anniversary of its groundbreaking DB28 in 2020 and, as Ian Skellern’s relationship with the model goes back the full decade, it seemed an appropriate time for him to share the story of how he came to launch the DB28, own a DB28, and what he thinks of the DB28 after wearing one regularly for 10 years.
De Bethune has a thing for stars, but the way that they present them in the DB28xs Starry Seas is something that we haven’t seen before. As the name already hints, are the stars reflected in an ocean full of waves. To create this effect, De Bethune invented a random guilloché pattern, a world’s first, representing the waves.
What would happen if a watch brand makes a chronograph that looks almost exactly like a simple, time only watch? You end up with the most low-key, under-the-radar, stealth chronograph on the market: the De Bethune DB Eight!
Now that the year has renewed and we are looking forward to all the 2023 releases, it is a great time to take a look back at 2022, which was a pretty tremendous year for watchmaking. There were so many amazing watches that Joshua Munchow’s “shortlist” that he realized he had to take a different approach.