De Bethune always presents interesting and beautiful timepieces. This year is no exception.
The DB28 of last year is now available in two new guises. The first is the DB28 Aiguille d’Or (“golden hand”) which has a gold insert on the minute hand. This commemorates the Golden Hand award the DB28 won at last year’s Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Geneve.
In addition this DB28 also has a display back, revealing the movement with the graceful looking power reserve mechanism.
Next is the DB28 Special Edition which has a display back like the Aiguille d’Or. This Special Edition is entirely in entirely in black and silver tones. The case is polished titanium while the lugs are zirconium. David Zanetta noted that using zirconium for the lugs was the only method of achieving this particular colour, without resorting to using a coating which is anathema to his philosophy since it can wear off.
To keep the monochromatic look, this special edition uses blackened steel and platinum for the spherical moon. And the final point of difference with the regular DB28 is the openworked index around the dial.
Inspired by the piece made for Only Watch 2011, the Dream Watch IV is a wandering hours watch that can be converted from a wristwatch to a pocket to an iPhone case by removing the watch and inserting it into the appropriate frame.
The iPhone case and either watch can be used simultaneously, as a medallion can substitute the watch in the iPhone case. And it should be noted that the case can be changed to fit a new smart phone while retaining the watch.
The dial of the watch is blued titanium with stars in gold and diamonds.
A $130,000 iPhone case is silly, and it is impractically heavy, but this is a beautifully crafted; all that polished titanium looks stunning. This is a limited edition of 12 pieces.
The last new model revealed (but there’s more coming at Baselworld I can’t show here) is the DB25 Ninth Mayan Underworld.
There is an extraordinarily complex explanation behind the Mayan calendar and the significance of 2012 but in brief the name of the watch refers to the ninth underworld which apparently comes this year, as I understand it. The somewhat morbid name belies a gorgeous watch. A watch like this could easily have looked tacky like a tourist souvenir but it is stunning.
This limited edition of 12 pieces has a solid gold dial centre featuring various Mayan glyphs. These are intricate and fine, yet clearly hand-engraved. In contrast the index with the hour numerals (numbered in Mayan fashion with a dot for one and a bar for five) is engraved by machine resulting in clean, constant lines. So as not to obscure the dial, the hands are sapphire with blue steel tips.
This message has been edited by SJX on 2012-01-30 05:56:16