Design Revolution: The De Bethune DBSPS5 Moonphase

It is I suppose the fate of all revolutions in art to become, if they’re genuinely meaningful, part of the established corpus of masterpieces in their own right. The Museum Of Modern Art here in New York is full of works that reflect the social, intellectual, and scientific revolutions of the late 19th and 20th centuries but which no longer shock – instead, they offer enduring insights into the world from which they came.

In the world of watch design, the avant garde came late; when revolutions in art and design were upending established norms in the first half of the 20th century, watchmaking was still an essentially conservative world – Andy Warhol, to pick just one example of an art world disruptor with very traditional taste in watches, wore Patek Philippe and Cartier timepieces and the furthest he ever went in manifesting horological rebellion was not winding his Tank.

The real revolution in modern mechanical watch design would have to wait until the end of the so-called Quartz Crisis and the re-invention of mechanical watchmaking not just as an exercise in functional excellence and traditional elegance, but in design innovation as well. Denis Flageollet and David Zanetta founded De Bethune in 2002 and while their earliest watches look at first glance like exercises in almost willfully anachronistic design, the seeds of De Bethune’s more radical departures from business as usual were already there. In 2004, De Bethune introduced its first in-house movement, the DB2004, and its technical features and signature delta-bridge design would go on to form the basis for one of its most dramatically different watches, the DBS.

The DBS PS5 is an anthracite-dial version of the original PS5 first introduced just a year after the caliber DB2004 was introduced in the DB15 perpetual calendar. In the DB15, the movement is arranged in the normal way, with the delta top plate visible through the display back. The DBS, on the other hand, inverged the movement so that the delta bridge, staggered mainspring barrels, balance, and the triple pare-chute antishock bridge were all visible on the dial side, along with De Bethune’s spherical moonphase.

The DBS was first introduced as a prototype for the 2005 edition of Only Watch, and, in addition to the inverted movement, the DBS was also the first De Bethune watch to introduce a completely new case design.

The two lower lugs are more or less conventional, albeit they’re the ogival lugs found on all earlier De Bethune watches. The upper lug – singular – wraps around the crown at 12:00 like the bow of a pocket watch and the whole horseshoe shaped case looks very much like a pocket watch adapted for the wrist, which is reinforced by the dimensions; in this case, 42.6mm side to side and, measured from the crown to the lower lugs, 51mm overall. As Tim M. points out in his video review, the very short lower lugs, plus the articulated upper lug, as well as the use of a curved springbar for the longer end of the strap, means that the numbers don’t tell the whole story. The watch hugs even a smaller wrist pretty comfortably and despite the platinum case, thanks to its slim profile it’s closer to a classic dress watch experience than you might think.

The DBS PS5 in this configuration, platinum case with anthracite dial, is pretty rare – one surfaced at Phillips in 2002, and their catalog notes say only 17 made overall; per Tim Mosso, there were just six produced in this specific configuration. There are a number of design cues which would become broader elements of De Bethune’s designs moving forward from 2005, including the modified openworked Breguet hands, of course the delta shaped movement bridge, the spherical moonphase, and the domed chapter ring (and the DBS case design itself would go on to inspire wider use of articulated lugs at De Bethune, as well as a number of variations on the original DBS design, including the 2008 Dream Watch 3 and 2006 Dream Watch 1).

With the movement essentially inverted, the back of the DBS PS5 is relatively austere. The only interruption in the undisturbed expanse of platinum are the the caseback engravings, and a window opened into the caseback to show the power reserve. The two barrels deliver a six day power reserve, with a slipping bridle on one of the mainspring barrels to prevent excess tension from being wound into the mainspring.

If you’re a diehard gearhead, this is an extremely exciting watch thanks to a number of patented innovations several of which were launched when the DBS launched, in 2005. And, thanks to the inverted movement you can see them all (and lecture all and sundry about them all) without taking off the watch.

The spherical moonphase as well as the shaft and gear that drive it are visible (it’s a precision moonphase accurate to an error of one day in 122 years). The large bridge across the balance is not only an upper bridge, it’s also the triple pare-chute antishock system, so called for the three antishock springs used, one of which is on the balance staff in the usual position, and the other two of which hold down the jewels on the arms of the balance bridge. The system is designed not just to prevent the delicate balance staff pivots from bending or breaking if the watch gets a shock – they also help to rapidly re-center the balance when it’s momentarily displaced by any jolt or impact.

The balance is a 2005 De Bethune innovation as well.

And so is the balance spring. The balance has titanium arms and at the end of each are four moveable platinum weights. The whole idea is to maximize the inertia of the balance at the periphery, which ideally is where most of the mass of a balance should be, and minimize the inertia as you get closer to the center of gravity of the balance. The balance spring has an outer terminal coil whose geometry is designed to give you the same advantage as a Breguet/Phillips overcoil – concentric “breathing” of the balance spring – without the requirement for additional height that a conventional overcoil requires.

Of course, you don’t need to know any of the reasons for these technical innovations to appreciate what they bring to the table aesthetically. They’re beautiful even if you have no idea why they exist but of course, knowing the logic behind them adds immeasurably to your appreciation of the watch. They’re technical features but they’re also an artistic expression of Denis Flageollet’s philosophy of chronometry, and as fine an example of the seamless integration of technical watchmaking and aesthetics as there is.

When it comes to De Bethune we all have our favorites and the DBS is one of mine – there is something very compelling about its combination of originality in design and innovation in technical watchmaking. Technical advances in watchmaking are not always particularly visually compelling taken on their own, and certainly, when it comes to innovation in watch mechanisms and movements, it’s a lot easier to find examples that fail from a design standpoint, than it is to find those fewer examples that succeed. The DBS however sits at a unique intersection of De Bethune history, watchmaking history, and technical history – a major milestone along the road taken by independent watchmaking as a whole, and by De Bethune.

Note: The 1916 Company is a majority investor in De Bethune.

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