The Founder of Clerkenwell-based The Family Business tattoo parlour and highly sought-after inksman to the stars developed a passion for watches a decade ago

WHO: Mo Coppoletta, tattoo artist and designer 

WATCH: De Bethune DB28 

?I was always slightly into watches but not as deep as now. The real journey started about ten years ago, when I saw a report on SIHH on Italian television, and I thought maybe it was the right time for me to start developing a new hobby.
It was the designs most of all ? and the passion to dig deeper and try to find out more about the watches than general knowledge would allow. I was very fond of the independent brands almost straight away. Some I never warmed up to at all, and others I really built a passion for. You can?t be passionate about every brand, they?re too different ? it?s like liking all music. It was about 2008 that I got to know De Bethune. I admired the way they could join design and technique, movements and aesthetics. I have watches that I absolutely love in my collection, and go crazy about, but emotionally, De Bethune is my strongest connection in the watch world.
This one here came about 2-3 years after the DB28 was launched. It?s a special one-off order ? there is a version like that with a tourbillon, but this one doesn?t have one, and it has got the bridges with no rubies, flat bridges on the front. I already had one before ? a DB25 Starry Sky, one of the first iterations of it when the dial is not so blue, a...