De Bethune’s new avant-garde timepiece on display at Baselworld 2016 is part watch, part space object, and entirely out of this world.

In the original Superman series, people weren’t exactly sure what they were looking at when they first saw him flying across the sky. “It’s a bird…. It’s a plane” they would exclaim, before finally realizing that “It’s Superman!”

I reacted much the same when first seeing De Bethune’s Dream Watch Meteorite wristwatch. Was it supposed to be a leaf? A rocket ship? A watch?

Much like Superman, I was presented with something literally out of this world. And as it turned out, it was all of the above rolled into one.

The Dream Watch Meteorite is the latest exercise of avant-garde watchmaking by the independent brand, made from a meteorite that fell to Earth more than 4,000 years ago. It’s the result of the masterful work and imagination of David Zanetta – Curator and Co-Founder – and Denis Flageollet – Master Watchmaker and Co-Founder at De Bethune.

Composed essentially of iron - with traces of nickel and cobalt – the 3kg meteorite block was carved down to a final case design that follows the organic arching lines that emerge in nature, for example in the shape of a leaf. A series of such curves has produced a watch that resembles a rocket ship – a fitting homage to the material used to make the watch.

Besides the unique efforts required to forge its unique shape, the execution of the rest of the watch is very much in line with what we expect from high-end watchmaking. Its in-house manually wound movement houses a high speed tourbillon beating to one-tenth of a second. The calibre also incorporates a number of silicon parts, including the patented balance wheel ringed in white gold, and the escape wheel.

Although the watch is mechanical, time is displayed digitally through a trapezoidal sapphire aperture with a jumping-hours disc and a second dragging minute disc. In the centre, the spherical moon-phase complication turns regularly with super high precision - it only needs to be adjusted by one lunar day every 1,112 years.

With the Dream Watch Meteorite, De Bethune has created a truly unique timepiece that is a testament to the unfathomable mysteries of the universe. It wows the crowds and at the same time asks them to question the traditional art of watch design, and the universe itself.