Results for De Bethune

New: De Bethune DB25 Perpetual Sky & DB Kind of Two Jumping GMT

At Dubai Watch Week 2025, De Bethune unveiled the DB25 Perpetual Sky and the DB Kind of Two Jumping GMT, a striking showcase of the brand’s dual identity.

Introducing – A New Edition of the Superb De Bethune Kind of Two Jumping GMT

The De Bethune Kind of Two concept, a pivoting, double-faced case that literally gives you two watches in one, has proven to be one of the brand´s most successful design experiments. The 2021 DB Kind of Two Tourbillon and the 2022 DB Kind of Two Jumping GMT established the format as both an engineering exercise […]

Introducing – The New De Bethune DB25 Perpetual Sky

The De Bethune DB25 line has long served as the brand’s classical counterpoint, a collection where its most traditional complications are expressed through a very distinctive design. Since the first DB25QP appeared in 2011, the perpetual calendar complication has evolved through multiple iterations. Among the recent releases were the richly coloured green model with guilloché […]

Introducing – The Bold Colour of the New De Bethune DB28XS Yellow Tones

If you want to talk about an emblematic design of independent watchmaking, then the DB28 should be on the list. Born in 2010, this watch, with its incredible design, would become a working laboratory of innovation for the brand, developing titanium surface treatments and unprecedented materials for the movement. The DB28 and its floating lugs, […]

New releases from Frederique Constant, De Bethune, Zenith and more

Fair warning: this is a pretty massive edition of Last Week in Watches, as there were so many new products released last week...The post New releases from Frederique Constant, De Bethune, Zenith and more appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.

De Bethune Shrinks the DB25 Starry Varius

De Bethune narrows the diameter of the bestselling DB25 Starry Varius but broadens its horizons with an entrancing red-leaning-purple dial achieved by heating titanium. And it’s more than just a pretty face, the DB25xs Starry Varius packs one of the most advanced two-hand manual wound calibres on the market. Initial Thoughts A personal favourite of mine, the Starry Varius line is gorgeous, technically adept, and meaningfully customisable. De Bethune justifies this variant as representing the night sky after a volcanic eruption, and colour perfectly matches viral, and hauntingly beautiful, images taken after the Tonga volcano eruption in 2022. As a chronometry-focused movement that paradoxically lacks a seconds hand, I find the cal. DB2005 very interesting. I’d even argue it makes sense as the six-day power reserve paints it as an endurance timekeeper. It’s also more technically interesting than most of the – very finely decorated – three handers from younger independents, even if Be Bethune’s R&D; efforts have dwindled recently. Under A Sea of Stars The dials are mirror polished titanium, which De Bethune heat oxidises for colour. While the brand’s specific method is proprietary, the thickness of this oxide layer determines which wavelengths of light transmit back to the observer, and this Burgundy dial must have a thinner oxide layer than the brand’s typical blue. Next, artisans set dozens of tiny gold pins into the dial to marks starts, before a micro-mill...

Introducing – The New De Bethune DB28xs Kind of Blue Tourbillon

Following the recent release of the DB25xs Starry Varius, De Bethune continues to refine its icons with the launch of the DB28xs Kind of Blue Tourbillon, another watch that distils the brand´s design language and technical savoir-faire into a more compact format. Drawing on the thin profile of last year’s DB28XP Kind of Blue (43mm […]

First Look: De Bethune at Geneva Watch Days 2025

Introducing – The New De Bethune DB25xs Starry Varius, A Celestial Beauty in a More Compact Form

When De Bethune first unveiled the DB25 Starry Varius, it quickly became one of the brand’s most poetic and recognisable creations. A starry sky rendered in shimmering blued or polished titanium, dotted with hand-fitted white gold pins and illuminated by the Milky Way in delicate 24-carat gold leaf, it was, quite literally, a firmament on […]

De Bethune Introduces Two Of Its Smallest Watches

Massena LAB and Vianney Halter Team Up for the “Old Soul”

Before there was MB&F;, before there was Richard Mille or Greubel Forsey or De Bethune, there was Vianney Halter. Alongside brands like Urwerk, Vianney Halter helped to reimagine what watches could look and feel like coming into the 21st century. Writing in 2025, it’s hard to think of a time when the weird and wonderful wasn’t a core part of watch collecting, and Vianney Halter deserves no small amount of praise for his role in bridging the gap between a more traditional interpretation of independent watchmaking and the wide-open world of watch design we now get to enjoy. Still, nearly three decades on from the release of his first watch in 1998 (the inimitable Antiqua Perpetual Calendar), Vianney Halter is still working, and his latest release, the Old Soul - designed and executed in collaboration with William Massena and Massena LAB - is a sterling reminder that the old master isn’t out of tricks just yet. Like Halter’s last collaboration, the Louis Erard x Vianney Halter Regulator, which was released around Thanksgiving last year, the Old Soul leans into Halter’s Steampunk sensibilities, but blends the unique aesthetic with Massena’s signature eye towards historic watch design. The resulting piece is something both classically beautiful and wholly contemporary. Cased in a sedate and handsome 42mm, 12mm thick steel case, the Old School by Vianney Halter and Massena LAB is powered by the Minerva calibre 17’22, a vintage pocket watch movement first introdu...

Hands On: De Bethune DB25 Monopusher Chronograph

De Bethune once again has a single-button chronograph to its line-up with the compact DB25 Monopusher Chronograph. Styled after the DB8 from the brand’s early years, the DB25 chronograph has a smaller case but a larger, more refined movement. Importantly, it is most accessible chronographs from the brand in recent memory, both in size and price. Initial Thoughts I hold De Bethune in high regard for its technical ambition and an idiosyncratic design language that blends aesthetic codes from the 18th and 23rd centuries. The distinctive aesthetics were largely the brainchild of cofounder Davide Zanetta, who unfortunately departed the brand several years ago. Fortunately, however, both traits are alive and well in the DB25 Monopusher Chronograph. For several years the brand lacked a conventional chronograph, and I see the new DB25 as the brand’s long-term solution to that problem. Likely shaped by feedback on the recent DB Eight, the DB25 Monopusher has everything it needs to be a staple of the brand’s line-up – moderate sizing, good looks, and complementary calibre. Though based on the brand’s prior chronograph movements, the DB3000 inside the DB25 is interesting in several respects. For one, it retains the oscillating pinion found in the long-ago DB1. The oscillating pinion isn’t well regarded by collectors, seen as less advanced than a vertical clutch and without the theatre of a horizontal coupling. It is possible to make a handsome chronograph with an oscillat...

A Closer Look: De Bethune DB25 Monopusher Chronograph

Business News: Roundup: De Bethune CEO Departing, Chrono24 Rebrands

Pierre Jacques moves from CEO to Honorary President at De Bethune, while Chrono24 has a new look.

Introducing – The De Bethune Mystery Box: Forget Time, created by Fiona Krüger & Denis Flageollet

The “Mystery Box: Forget Time” results from the collaboration between Fiona Krüger and master watchmaker Denis Flageollet, founder of De Bethune. Known for her original approach to watch design, Fiona Krüger has built a reputation within the independent watchmaking world for her artistic yet technically demanding creations. Her past work, like the Skull and Chaos […]

History of De Bethune Watches for Watch Collectors by Tim Mosso

In this video Tim Mosso explains the full history of De Bethune, from its first watches to their latest models. Over its first 23 years of history, the brand co-founded by watchmaker Denis Flageollet has created a vast array of innovative watches that belies its relative corporate youth.

New: De Bethune DB25 Monopusher Chronograph

De Bethune unveiled the new DB25 Monopusher Chronograph a couple of weeks ago on the same week as Watches & Wonders. Press release with our commentary.

De Bethune Turns to Swizz Beatz for Kind of Two GMT

The third iteration of De Bethune’s swivelling, double-faced watch is the Kind of Two GMT “Season 3” conceived in collaboration with American rapper and watch enthusiast Swizz Beatz. Powered by the hand-wound DB2517 movement, the watch indicates one time zone on the front and another on the reverse, with both sides able to be worn face up thanks to patented, pivoting “floating” lugs. Initial thoughts The Kind of Two series employs a useful reversible case, cleverly using the “floating” lug construction of the DB28 to create a double-faced watch. Here one dial is traditional with blued steel hands, and the other an open-worked face revealing the movement that also has a regulator-style display for the second time zone. The clever approach with a unique movement is typical De Bethune, although this loses some novelty as the third double-faced watch in the De Bethune line-up. The Kind of Two GMT is definitely one of the most elaborate two time zone watches on the market, but at over US$200,000, it is pricey for a GMT, even by the standards of independent watchmaking (Voutilainen’s GMT, for instance, costs less). Two-faced The “Season 3” edition adopts a restrained palette of black and gold with blue accents. The 43.3 mm by 11.4 mm case is titanium and zirconium, with blued steel hands and a blue-and-black guilloche dial centre on the front showing local time. Notably, this dial includes a jumping seconds that is driven by a secondary escapement visible on ...

First Look – The Sleek Black and Blue Wetsuit of the De Bethune DB28GS Swordfish

Introduced in 2010, De Bethune’s DB28 family distils the essence of Denis Flageollet’s unique watchmaking style with its futuristic silhouette, floating lugs, delta-shaped barrel bridge, exposed balance wheel, and, more often than not, the brand’s signature blued titanium elements. In 2015, the DB28 was revisited in a sportier version with a 100m water-resistant case known […]

De Bethune Novelties For 2025 With Denis Flageollet

Introducing – The New De Bethune DB25NC Monopusher Chronograph

The mono-pusher chronograph has become a signature complication for De Bethune and Denis Flageollet. The DB1, the brand’s first watch in 2002, was a monopusher chrono using the movement developed by THA. It was followed by several other mono-pusher chronographs among which the DB8 in 2003, the DB28 Maxichrono in 2014 and the DB Eight […]

New releases from Raúl Pagès, Alto, De Bethune and more

Watches and Wonders is just around the corner, and it looks like independent brands have had a lot to say the past seven days.The post New releases from Raúl Pagès, Alto, De Bethune and more appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.

Introducing – The Darker De Bethune Kind of Two GMT x Swizz Beatz

De Bethune teams up for the third time with American rapper and record producer Kasseem Daoud Dean, aka Swizz Beatz. The model selected for the artistic collaboration is the DB Kind of Two GMT, an impressive convertible watch with two dials for the dual time display and jumping seconds. One of the most intuitive ways […]

De Bethune DB17 Minute Repeater Perpetual Calendar Unique Piece Reviewed by Tim Mosso

The De Bethune DB17 Piece Unique is a technical tour-de-force by two of the greatest minds in modern watchmaking, and it embodies a thrilling combination of beauty and ambition.

Hands-on – The Captivating Beauty of the De Bethune DB28XP Steel Wheels Tourbillon

Denis Flageollet, master watchmaker and the “mad genius” behind De Bethune’s creations, is passionate about the “great patrimony of classical watchmaking” and resolved to contribute calibres “worthy of the 21st century” (32 calibres to date). While many associate De Bethune with sleek futuristic vessels, Flageollet’s attention to classical finishings and pursuit of chronometric excellence reflect […]