When you go to Watches & Wonders, you hope to have an experience like the one Zach Weiss and I did with De Bethune. The Geneva based brand was actually not exhibiting at the show, but had space in the Beau Rivage hotel, right on the lake, along with a dozen or so other independent brands, all taking good advantage of the watch world absolutely descending on the city for an entire week. I have long been an admirer of De Bethune, but always from afar. They are not the easiest indie to get your arms around, both literally and figuratively. The watches are very rare and hyper specific in their design language, and for a long time I had the sense that they might appeal to exactly the 200 or so people per year that are able to obtain a new piece, no more no less. But then the last three years happened, and every independent brand took off like a rocket ship, and since De Bethune watches kind of look like rocket ships to begin with, their rise was perhaps even steeper.
The DB Eight Monopusher

We were there, ostensibly, to see two watches. The brand?s latest novelties both happen to be more classically styled than the avant-garde pieces they?ve become known for. The DB Eight monopusher chronograph is about as classic as it gets. The case design, with those flared lugs, is based on the DB1, the very first De Bethune, also a chronograph. This one, though, has a brand new caliber and is fashioned from grade 5 titanium as opposed to solid gold. While the aesthetic of the...