Beaubleu’s Unique Watches Replace Traditional Hands with Rotating Circles

Here at Worn & Wound we’re on a constant quest to find new, interesting watch brands that surprise and delight in equal measure. There’s a lot to sift through – brands are popping up all the time, all over the world, each one trying to find an audience for a creation they see as unique and special. To say it’s a crowded market would be a massive understatement, but that’s far from a complaint. In fact, it’s a great thing for the hobby – in order for this scene to grow, new things have to be tried, and new fans have to be brought in. It’s in that context that we highlight the Beaubleu Union Collection, which to my eye doesn’t look like any other watch I’ve ever seen, and feels like the kind of thing that could get a new enthusiast really excited, with its clearly avant-garde design.

Beaubleu is based in Paris, and as you can plainly see from the images in this post, have designed a watch with unique circular hands. This is not a complex reworking of a long understood time telling system (although it might appear to be at a glance), but more of an exercise, or experiment, in style. The message it sends, to me, is a more casual interpretation of time. You lose a certain precision without hands that point decidedly at a numeral or hour marker. In spite of what is basically a dress watch aesthetic, there’s something casual and undeniably playful about the circular hands decision.

It’s hard to say without having the watch in hand, but it seems like legibility should be fairly straightforward and clear after a period of adjustment. The largest circle, extending all the way to the outer edge of the dial, is a running seconds indicator, with the mid sized circle counting off minutes and the smallest providing the hours. I would imagine that in motion the sweep of that large circular seconds indicator holds a lot of visual interest. If you’re used to a traditional second hand (as I’m sure we all are) it’s certainly going to be a very different experience to check the time, at the very least. 

The Union Collection actually consists of two smaller mini collections. The Rive Gauche line has a flat dial in blue, black, and two shades of white. The Rive Droit line has a vintage style curved dial in blue, green, or red. The watches measure 39mm in diameter and use the Miyota 9015 automatic movement. Prices range from 740 to 790 Euros.

More information at Beaubleu’s website right here.