Back in 2014, De Bethune launched one of its most memorable designs: the DB28 Digitale, which put the famous De Bethune spherical moonphase front and center in a minimalist, part-futuristic, part Art-Deco design that showed Denis Flageollet’s capabilities with the artful use of carefully inflected negative space.
The De Bethune DB28 DigitaleThe DB28 Digitale featured the articulated “floating lugs” of the DB28 series, with the caliber DB2144, in a 45mm titanium case, with blued titanium starry skies decoration around the spherical moonphase indication, and on the minute indicator sector. The new DB25 Digitale retains esssential elements of the original, but reinterpreted in the context of the DB25 series of watches.The case is slightly smaller, at 42mm x 11.9mm, and fans of the original will notice immediately that the divisions of the dial are slightly different. The sector for the minutes is now in an arc across the bottom half of the dial, and the spherical moonphase and jumping hours now share a surround, with a blued starry sky disk made of heat-blued grade 5 titanium, set with grey-gold stars. The crown is now positioned at 3:00, rather than the pocket watch-like 12:00 position of the DB28 Digitale.Most notably, the guilloché pattern of the DB28 Digitale is now present as a ring surrounded by another starry sky ring, with a larger ring of De Bethune’s signature “random guilloché” inside it.While the design has been adapted to the new case and case size, the movement is still the caliber DB2144, albeit Version 3.The movement is unlike anything else in modern watchmaking in terms of its technical innovations and general construction, and includes such well-known De Bethune inventions as the spherical moonphase, titanium balance with grey gold inserts, the patented De Bethune balance spring, which has a terminal outer affix giving the advantages of the Breguet overcoil without the added height an overcoil usually requires, a silicon escape wheel, and the 2005 triple pare-chute antishock system, which not only provides further shock resistance, but also helps to recenter the balance more quickly if the watch does receive a shock. This in turn helps to minimize any rate disruptions that might be caused by physical disturbances.These inventions are also quite beautiful purely from an aesthetic standpoint, and in Version 3 of this caliber (DB2144V3) there’s a central insert which is also decorated with random guilloché – this is the first time this pattern has been used on the movement side of a De Bethune watch, and it creates visual continuity with the dial.The DB25 Digitale has a bit more detail on the dial side than its predecessor, and so is not so resolutely minimalist, but at the same time, it retains all the harmony of form of the DB28, and has sacrificed none of the DB28 Digitale’s visual clarity. And the random guilloché makes the DB25 Digitale a bit more evocative of the natural world, with the spherical moonphase seeming to swim in the blue waters of the deep ocean at night.The DB25 Digitale: case, polished grade 5 titanium, 42mm x 11.9 mm with integrated openworked lugs; sapphire crystals front and back; water resistance 30 meters. Movement, caliber DB2144V3, with the crown at 3:00, 30mm diameter with five day power reserve; pare-chute antishock system; blued titanium balance with grey gold inserts; De Bethune flat balance spring with centering affix terminal curve and silicon escape wheel; running at 28,800 vph in 32 jewels, with a five day power reserve. Price, $135,000. The 1916 Company is proud to be an authorized retailer for De Bethune watches. Contact us for current pricing and availability.
