DE BETHUNE DB25 DIGITALE RECONSIDERS HOW TIME IS READ

De Bethune returns to an idea explored in its earlier DBD with the DB25 Digitale, replacing the familiar arrangement of central hands and hour markers with three distinct indications: jumping hours displayed digitally, minutes read from a rotating analogue disc, and a spherical moon phase at the centre. The result gives the dial room to operate as a composition in its own right, built from 82 elements and shaped by the Manufacture’s work with titanium, guilloché, heat treatment, and light.

The approach follows a principle set out by De Bethune co-founder and master watchmaker Denis Flageollet: moving away from conventional methods of displaying time creates space to investigate materials and finishes more closely. On the DB25 Digitale, the mechanics of reading the hour and minute are consequently distributed around the dial rather than concentrated at its centre.

The dial draws its visual language from reflections on water beneath a night sky. De Bethune constructs the effect through contrasting forms of guilloché and different treatments of titanium rather than through a single decorative surface. A barleycorn motif introduces the geometry associated with classical watchmaking, while random guilloché cut into blued titanium produces the irregular pattern that dominates the centre of the dial.

These layers are arranged concentrically. The jumping-hour aperture sits towards 12 o’clock, while the minutes are indicated along an arc at the lower edge of the dial by a rotating disc. With neither conventional hands nor applied hour markers occupying the centre, attention moves towards the spherical moon phase and the changing textures surrounding it.

At the heart of the display is De Bethune’s spherical moon, formed from two polished hemispheres: one in palladium and the other in flame-blued steel. The indication is accurate to within one lunar day every 1,112 years. Heat treatments applied to the titanium elsewhere on the dial generate the gradations of blue that extend from the central display towards its outer sections.

The arrangement also reveals how closely the decorative and mechanical aspects of the DB25 Digitale are linked. Beneath the dial, a micro ball-bearing system governs both the jumping-hour indication and the rotating minute disc. The hour therefore advances instantaneously within its aperture, while the minute display travels around its dedicated scale.

Turning the watch over reveals Calibre DB2144V3 through a sapphire exhibition case-back. This third-generation movement carries the random guilloché motif from the dial onto the deltoid bridge for the first time, extending the same surface treatment across both sides of the watch.

The calibre incorporates several of De Bethune’s established technical developments. These include a self-regulating twin barrel, the Manufacture’s latest titanium-and-grey-gold balance wheel, a De Bethune balance spring with a flat terminal curve, and its triple pare-chute shock-absorbing system. The architecture places these mechanisms in view around the open section of the movement, framed by the polished and blued components of the bridge.

The continuation of the random guilloché from front to back is particularly relevant to the construction of the DB25 Digitale. Rather than treating the movement and dial as visually separate areas, De Bethune repeats the same irregular pattern across both, connecting the display of time with the mechanism responsible for it.

The DB25 Digitale is housed in a 42 mm case made from grade 5 titanium. Its surfaces are mirror-polished, while a narrow bezel leaves a broad opening for the dial. The case is completed by the DB25 collection’s slender, openworked, and rounded lugs, which carry the manufacture’s characteristic ‘bullet’ form and follow the downward slope of the case towards the wrist.

A dark blue lined alligator strap accompanies the watch, secured by a polished titanium pin buckle. The restrained profile of the case gives the layered dial most of the visual space, while the use of titanium keeps the construction comparatively light.

The DB25 Digitale takes a familiar set of indications and assigns each a different method of display. Hours jump through an aperture, minutes rotate around the dial, and the moon occupies its centre as a polished sphere. Freed from conventional hands and hour markers, the remaining space becomes a study of surface treatment, depth, and changing reflections.

That distinction is central to the watch. Its digital hour display is only one part of the idea. The broader exercise lies in reorganising how information occupies the dial, allowing the technical mechanism, the materials used to construct it, and De Bethune’s recurring celestial imagery to share the same architecture.