Meet De Bethune’s Yellow Submarine, a Radical Dive Watch With Its Own Light Source

The new De Bethune DB28GS Yellow Submarine is not your father’s dive watch. In fact, it’s not like any dive watch that’s ever been created. Sure, it’s got all the requisite features—water-resistance to 105 meters (10 ATM), a rotating bezel and an ingenious mechanism to ensure legibility at night and/or underwater—but that’s where all similarities to the other timepieces in the immensely popular dive watch category end.

Not only does the Yellow Submarine not look like a typical blue-dial dive watch, but its origin story is also replete with connotations of fire. In 2019, the Geneva-based brand developed titanium in a warmly hued color that mixed shades of amber and blonde that exuded a warmth meant to reflect the sun.

Once De Bethune perfected the “fiery, radical, magnetic yellow” evident in the Yellow Submarine’s 40 mm case, its watchmakers turned their attention to the features that distinguish a dive watch from its cohorts in the sport category. In addition to equipping the piece with a rotating bezel and indications that appear on the sapphire crystal (these typically appear on the bezel in a traditional dive watch), they installed a fully mechanical light source activated by a pusher at 6 o’clock. Depressing the pusher initiates a gear train with a miniature generator that converts mechanical energy into electrical energy, thus emitting a few seconds of light.

The hand-wound movement—complete with central seconds and five days of power reserve—features a cutting-edge, in-house-made balance wheel made of titanium and white gold. Note the unusual positioning of the crown at 12 o’clock.

The model, which features De Bethune’s patented floating lugs—designed to adapt to wrist size and movements—comes with two straps: one in canvas and the other in a striated natural rubber. Available in a limited edition of 25 pieces, the DB28GS Yellow Submarine retails for $110,000.

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