Here we are as promised on the top picks outside of Pal Expo! I will be covering independent brands in Beau Rivage during the week of Watches and Wonders 2024.
New Watches Beyond Pal Expo, Geneva 2024 – Stanley’s Top Pick
Two weeks on and we are still filled with adrenaline from Watches and Wonders week. Perhaps to give today’s article a little more context, Watches and Wonders 2024 was the biggest fair at Geneva in that week. However, there were other satellite fairs which happened in conjunction with the aforementioned. The other fairs were mainly independents at Beau Rivage and Time to Watches at HEAD. I will be covering the former with my top watch picks.
HYT T1
First up, we have the latest creation from HYT. The T1, is a brand new watch from the independent maison which features a very wearable sized timepiece at 45mm with no lugs. This makes the watch true to size. The interestingly, HYT managed to incorproate their iconic micro-fluidic module that is mechanically driven into this newly designed, sleeker and more egonomical case.
Video Courtesy of our Publicist: Victor Ang of Access Coms
HYT have dubbed their latest “space-age” timepiece as “for everyday-wear”. Complimenting the egonomical size, HYT will be including a user-friendly interchangeable strap system that is very similar to the ones on the Zenith Defy Skyline range. Please don’t get me wrong, it is a great system and certainly one that is easy to use to we could use it to match our outfit even if we are running late. HYT offers two straps variations namely velcro sailcloth straps and rubber straps in many different colour choices.
Video Courtesy of our Publicist: Victor Ang of Access Coms
Finally, powering the gorgeous “for everyday-wear” HYT is the hand-wound Calibre HYT 501-CM. It features a 352 individual parts, 28,800BpH, weekend proof 72 hours power reserve and an improved finishing from it’s predecessors. This movement is not new and was in the HYT Hastroid Blue Star that we have covered previously.
De Bethune DB28 XS Purple Rain
Yes you got it! It’s named as DB28 XS Purple Rain which is exactly like the song from Prince. The movement and case size is exactly the same as what we have covered previously on the other variants BUT this time, they have made the case purple.
What intrigues me is the process to get it in purple. Many would have known by now that De Bethune is a master at thermal colouring their watches. Those who have some chemical/engineering background would know that should one heat the titanium (TI) enough, the colour would start to change and finally we would get blue in the final stage. Purple is one stage before going blue and what blew my mind is how evenly and nicely done on the Purple Rain. Now that’s mindblowing!
Conclusion
There we have it! After almost 3 weeks of Watches and Wonders content, I have rounded up my choice of watches in Pal Expo and Beau Rivage. I won’t lie that it is a poison fest for a watch lover and collector like me. I certainly dream and wish that I am Jeff Bezos or Bernard Arnault where I am the richest man to be able to afford all the watches I lust after. Would I recommend everyone of you to go despite being poisoned? It’s a definite YES!
