New Year, New Season: Swizz Beatz And De Bethune Present The Season 3 Kind Of Two GMT
The latest collaboration between Swizz Beatz and De Bethune is a new version of one of fine watchmaking’s most unusual dual time zone watches.
Musician and producer Swizz Beatz is a music industry veteran with accomplishments that include five Grammy nominations and a win for Best Rap Performance By A Duo Or Group in 2011, an Urban Music Award for Best Producer in 2009, producer credits on gold and platinum records going all the way back to 1998 with artists like Beyoncé, Jay Z, Gwen Stefani, Ludacriss, and many others, as well as his own recordings and singles. He’s also been a collaborator with De Bethune since 2021, when his first collaboration with DB debuted: the Dream Watch DW5 Tourbillon Season One, which went against the usual Dream Watch design codes of a closed case by using seven curved sapphire panels to make the rotating disks for the hours and minutes visible. Season One was followed in due course, in 2023, by the DBD Season Two, which was a version of the DBD Digitale jumping hours watch featuring a zirconium case, and a deep burgundy dial. Today, De Bethune and Swizz Beatz are launching their third and arguably most ambitious collaboration – the DB Kind Of Two GMT Season Three, which introduces a new aesthetic to the Kind Of Two GMT complication which was launched in 2022.
As with the original Kind Of Two GMT, the Season 3 is a double-sided, reversible watch which has a “classic” face and a “contemporary” face. The case of the watch sits inside a pair of articulated lugs which are hinged to allow them to conform to the shape of the owner’s wrist, and those hinges also function as the pivot points for the case proper. The Season 3 is easy to set – home time can be set on the contemporary face, with its exposed delta shaped bridge for the mainspring barrels, by pulling the crown out to its second position; the third position of the crown sets the time on the classic face.
The classic face has basic design cues going all the way back to some of the earliest De Bethune watches, including the railroad style minute track and the Breguet-style hour and minute hands, but it also has a central disk, set with De Bethune’s “random guilloché” which was first introduced in May of 2023 in the DB28xs Starry Seas. The random in random guilloché refers to the appearance of randomness in the distribution of peaks and valleys in the guilloché pattern, which in the Starry Seas was intended to give the appearance of starlight on ocean waves at night. The effect is both hypnotically attractive and convincing, but it is a bit of visual sleight of hand as well; if you draw an imaginary vertical line through the center of the random guilloché, you’ll see that the waves are actually symmetrical around the vertical axis of the watch. One other visible, kinetic feature is the center seconds hand, which beats dead seconds (that is, it’s a deadbeat seconds hand which jumps in discrete one second jumps).
The oceanic serenity of the classical face is in startling contrast to the celebration of mechanics that you see on the contemporary side.
De Bethune suggests that the contemporary dial is best used as the home time display, which makes sense from a legibility standpoint; the classic face is instantly readable while checking the time on the contemporary side takes a fraction of a second longer thanks to the hour and minute displays. The hours are shown in a subdial in which an elongated delta shaped hand – the science fiction vibes are strong here – rotates once every twelve hours; the hand, or indicator if you prefer, is stabilized by two ruby rollers attached to its arms, which ride in a recess inside the vertical inner lip of the subdial; a satisfyingly intricate solution to showing the hours. Minutes are shown by a peripheral minute hand which rides on a disk with inward facing teeth at the periphery of the dial, driven by the movement motion works.
At the center of the subdial you can see the upper antishock spring for the balance, which is titanium with white gold inserts, built according to De Bethune’s patent of 2016. The balance and balance spring aren’t visible but the balance spring is also built according to a De Bethune patent, and has an affix on the outer terminal curve which provides the same centering advantages as a conventional Breguet or Phillips overcoil, but without the additional height. The escape wheel is in silicon, partly to provide lower inertia when it’s unlocked; the watch runs at a high frequency of 36,000 vph.
The two staggered mainspring barrels are openworked, so that the mainsprings are visible, and they’re under a skeletonized version of De Bethune’s signature delta balance bridge; together, they provide a four day running time. The centerpiece of the contemporary side of the dial are the sawtoothed wheels for the deadbeat seconds complication; also visible is the lever with its ruby pallets which controls the locking and unlocking of the deadbeat seconds hand on the opposite side of the dial.
The new Season 3 is an almost complete inversion of the lighter color palate of the standard production Kind Of Two Jumping Seconds GMT.
The case of the Season Three is in blackened titanium, and the articulated lugs are in zirconium (more often encountered in watchmaking in its oxide form, zirconium dioxide, which is the most widely used ceramic in watchmaking). Zirconium as an elemental metal is extremely tough – it’s extremely resistant to corrosion from water as well as strong acids or bases and it’s also very hard, heat resistant and generally an all around tough guy, finding uses in everything from the aerospace to nuclear industries.
The Season 3 will be produced in just ten examples worldwide. It’s a rare version of an already rare watch and packed with technically distinctive features, all of which make it a real enthusiast’s conversation piece, but it’s also got instant Wow factor to burn – the combination of unique aesthetics and advanced horological features make it a quintessential example of what makes De Bethune, De Bethune.
The Swizz Beatz x De Bethune Kind Of Two Jumping GMT Season 3: case, blackened titanium with black zirconium floating lugs, 43.3mm x 11.4mm, with sapphire crystals on both sides; water resistance 30M/3 atmospheres, with zirconium buckle and matte black titanium pin. Movement, De Bethune caliber DB2517, hand wound, running in 58 jewels at 36,000 vph; titanium balance wheel with gold inserts (2016 patent) De Bethune self-centering balance spring with flat terminal curve (2006 patent), silicon escape wheel, and deadbeat seconds complication. Separate time-setting for the “contemporary” and “classic” faces. Classic display, heat blued titanium hour and minute hands with polished titanium jumping seconds hand; black dial with central “random guilloché.” Contemporary display, hour subdial centered on the balance with peripheral minute hand. Price, $235,000, limited to 10 pieces world wide.