"Bloody Beautiful Bauhaus! Dekla Bauhaus Una"

Hello and welcome to Just One More Watch and welcome to my first review of a Dekla in over 3 years. In fact, it's been so long that you might not remember the brand at all. Dekla are an independent German brand making a fairly small range of classic fliegers, more modern pilots watches and deck watches. I've reviewed two of them in the past, one of their classic fliegers and one of their more modern pilots watches which I still have in my collection. That's the one with my channel logo printed on the dial. Dekla are a bit special in that they make everything in-house. Dial, hands, cases and so on. All manufactured by them. All watches are then assembled to order by them in Stuttgart, Germany and as such they're fully customisable. There's always various boxes you can tick to get your watch your way. They just sent me two watches actually. This one, the bloody beautiful Bauhaus piece on today's thumbnail. The second watch is by their new sister brand, Busser Frères. That one is in the queue for review next week, but today it's the turn of the Bauhaus. You saw the pop-up, this video is sponsored by Dekla. I will therefore of course leave a link to their website in the description of the video. With all that being said, let's have a look at what I think is one of the most beautifully simple watches I've seen in years and although not a dollar dazzler, it's actually pretty good value for money once you see what you get for your money. And what you get starts with a very pleasant packaging arrangement consisting of a brown cardboard outer box and what looks to be an actual wood inner box with the brand logo and their place of origin etched into the top. Pop the lid on that and you're met by the very embodiment of the less is more Bauhaus philosophy. A very simple but very stylish watch with central hour and minute hand and a small second complication at a rather unusual spot, that being the 9 o'clock. 2 year warranty here by the way in case you were wondering. And that's not the only unusual thing about this Dekla, it contains a movement that I have not seen in a relatively affordable watch for over 4 years. Can you guess what it is? Well, allow me to turn the watch over, that'll probably make it a bit easier. That my friends is an ETA Unitas 6497 Elaborate Grade adjusted to plus or minus 7 seconds per day. If you haven't seen one of these movements before, they're actually based on a pocket watch calibre and made their debut in 1950. That makes this one another one of these living legend movements that fossils like the Valjoux 7750 and the Seagull ST19 have just refused to die, which I for one think is a good thing. While we're here, we may as well talk about the movement then. Manual winding of course, 17 jewels, a beat rate of 18,800 and a power reserve somewhere in the mid 40 hours when fully wound. This being an Elaborate Grade version, there are some rather nicely executed Geneva stripes as well as blued screws. My super macro lens takes no prisoners, this ETA looks really good even under such scrutiny. Now one reason why I was particularly excited to see this movement in the Dekla is because this is by far the smallest case that I've ever seen one of these movements in. They're normally only found in 44s and occasionally 42s, but the Dekla has classic proportions of only 40mm in diameter with 20mm lug width, making this by far the accessible 6497-6498 powered watch I've come across, particularly when you factor in a thickness of only 10.6mm and a lug tip to lug tip of 47.5mm. If you're nodding along, you know that this watch is going to be really nicely wearable for the vast majority of people. Weight as supplied on the perfectly pleasant leather strap is 71g, water resistance is 50m which is okay for this style of watch, crystal is double domed sapphire with double anti-reflective undercoating, a bit of a Dekla specialty and of course we're doing things backwards today so we have already talked about the movement. The case is 316L stainless steel and produced in Germany by Dekla themselves rather than by a third party. There's a mixture of brushed and polished with the sides being brushed but the upper lug surfaces and the fixed bezel being polished. It's a classic 3 piece case by the way, screw in case back as you saw earlier and a screw in bezel on top. The crown is all important on a manual winder and this one doesn't disappoint. 6.8mm which is just the right size, it is high polished but still manages to be nice and grippy and it features a Bauhaus style logo embossed on its edge. The triangle, inside a circle, inside a square, just like on today's thumbnail. It's almost like I think about these things sometimes. The strap is not the most exciting thing in the world but then again with a watch face this simple, you wouldn't want it to be any more elaborate than it is. Embossed black leather, nicely stitched, tapering from 20 to 18, double retainers and all brushed Dekla branded hardware, not quick release though so you're going to want to be very careful so as not to scratch those lovely high polished lugs if you do end up swapping it out for something else. Let's get back to the dial and hands then and as I said, less is more, it's all very simply done. Dekla offer two versions of this Bauhaus model, one with a white dial and blue hands or this one with a black dial but with 14k gold white hands. This was the one I specified, this watch was built to order just for me. Like the case, the dial and hands are both made in-house by Dekla. The dial, very simple, matte black finish, all markers are printed on rather than applied with moderately sized Bauhaus style Arabic numerals at 12, 3 and 6 and simple white batons everywhere else, large ones at the hour and small ones at the minutes. The small second indicator at the 9 is marked not every minute but every 5 minutes again, helping to keep things simple. It is very slightly recessed, it is honestly barely noticeable with the naked eye, you're only going to see it under macro lens or a loop. What is far more noticeable is Dekla's decision to make this a sector dial with white printed crosshairs intersecting at the pinion. I personally think that's a good decision, less may be more but it might just have looked a bit too plain if they hadn't done something like that. Their logo and place of origin just like on the box is printed between the pinion and the big Arabic at 12 and that's it. You can see the principles of Bauhaus philosophy and design embodied here like functional minimalism if they had done much more than that, it would have lost its Bauhaus spirit therefore. On wrist, well it's a 40-20, it's less than 11mm thick, it wears really nicely. Unfortunately, I seem to be between two holes on the leather strap, isn't that always the way. I am however hoping to persevere a little bit with the tighter of the two holes and perhaps lose a kilo or two because my personal preference would be to wear this one high and tight above the knuckle. I think it looks great sitting all neat and clean on my wrist fixed at that point. It's probably not a watch I would want to wear loose and have it flopping around everywhere. Now I did say this one has double anti-reflective coating so AR on top of the crystal and beneath the crystal. That lends to fantastic clarity under most circumstances but a distinct blue hue when you expose it to my studio lights for example. The two central hands, the hour and minute hand though are so slim that legibility invariably becomes a bit of an issue depending on angle. But hey, less is more right? What price for all this German Bauhaus loveliness then? Well, in the specs that I chose, with the white gold hands and with the double anti-reflective sapphire treatment, this one comes in at €1,050 including taxes but excluding shipping. Now take taxes off of that and you're looking at under €900. That's just under $1,000 US dollars. But of course you then may be subject to import taxes in your own country of residence. So if you're keen on one of these, do your research, make sure you know how much it's going to cost you before you hit the buy button. I don't think that price is too bad at all though. The case, the dial, the hands, all made in Germany, all made in-house by Decla, a classic Swiss made movement and assembled to order based on your individual specification requirements. It's almost like getting a bespoke Bauhaus watch for a grand. In today's market, that's actually a really good price. So I won't be complaining about the price today for once, what am I going to complain about instead? Well, legibility as discussed is not the best. Perhaps that would improve on the white version because the hands are blued. There would undoubtedly be a bit more contrast there. But if you want the fancy white gold hands against the black dial, you're just going to have to cope with a watch where legibility does rather come and go. And as good as the double AR coating is, it might have been less obtrusive had they used clear AR rather than blue AR. I suspect that will be down to personal taste though. Leave me a comment, let me know which way you think they should have gone. And as nice as that movement is, I would have appreciated a little bit more individualisation by the brand. Just an extra little engraving somewhere to let us know that it was a Decla perhaps. Not a biggie, but it would have been a nice touch nonetheless. And I've said several times that less is more. That is the theme today. So you're going to have to personally embrace this level of simplicity if you want to settle in with one of these long-term. For some people, less will be more. For some people, less won't be quite enough. So there you have it. Bloody brilliant Bauhaus or bloody boring Bauhaus. That decision my friends is yours. You already know my thoughts. This thing is gorgeous. It's really nicely done, it's spec'd and built to order and it's finally a watch with that classic ETA 6497-6498 movement that I can wear comfortably. Let me know what you think in the comments section. I look forward to reading your thoughts as always. Well done for making it all the way to the end. If you're a fan of the movement, as I said, you don't see them very often. Check out this pen and hints. If you're a fan of the brand, check out one of their traditional fleas. Thanks for watching this one. I'll see you all again in the next one.