De Bethune is a fully integrated, independent Swiss watch manufacture founded in 2002, with a reputation for extremely prestigious mechanical watchmaking. Year after year, De Bethune is recognised with awards that acknowledge its endeavours to advance Swiss watchmaking research. The company has developed no fewer than 27 calibres internally, produced over 150 one-of-a-kind pieces, and registered countless patents. Today De Bethune’s creativity is without equal, and it prides itself on observing the highest standards of quality and innovation within the extremely restricted circle of independent Swiss haute horlogerie watchmakers.
Just two years after it was founded, De Bethune unveiled its first manufacture calibre at the Baselworld watch fair. In 2009, for the Geneva fair, the manufacture launched the “Dream Watch 1”. This highly idiosyncratic timepiece incorporates a spherical moon phase display, an innovation that would later become a De Bethune signature. This creative exercise represented a completely new approach to a mechanical complication that is an iconic feature of Swiss haute horlogerie.
In 2011, De Bethune’s stature was formally recognised by watch industry professionals, when the watchmaker was awarded the most prestigious title of the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève: the Aiguille d’Or.
Today, in less than 20 years, De Bethune has become a worthy rival to many far older manufactures. The independent watchmaker is one of very few that can rely on its own R&D laboratory. Don’t do more, do better; draw inspiration from the past in order to reinvent it; build bridges with all areas of knowledge – these are the principles that underpin the brand’s mechanical invention and artistic creation.
The purity of style, sleek lines and meticulous craftsmanship of De Bethune’s watches bear witness to its relentless pursuit of perfection and beauty, and sum up the contemporary expression of the watchmaker’s art, according to De Bethune.
As an architect of 21st century watchmaking, and guardian of a venerable tradition, with its feet anchored in history and its head turned to the future, De Bethune embodies an exceptional approach that marries art with science.
