Dubai Watch Week
Dubai Watch Week: De Bethune Unveils Doubly Elegant and Classically Cosmic Timepieces
At Dubai Watch Week, the inventive watchmaker’s signature blade-bridged movement plays a dual role, drawing focus to some very compelling examples of the house’s more traditional dial expertise.
By Mike Espindle
Executive Editor
Similar to De Bethune’s recent one-two novelty punch released during Geneva Watch Days, its novelty focus for Dubai Watch Week was also a two-fer.
However, this time, for Dubai Watch Week, it’s a three-fer (read on) of new timepieces that showcase the maker’s dial expertise.
Two Faced
The double-sided DB Kind of Two Jumping GMT is a crowd-pleaser in that its two faces not only reflect the power of a more elegant traditional dial option with a technical movement-centered option in the mix, but also how a truly two-sided reversible approach can actually creatively enhance the watch’s core intent, especially if it’s a GMT.
“Designing a watch that tells two stories – on two dials and with dual-time displays revealed by one smooth move – was one of the most stimulating challenges of the Kind of Two Jumping GMT, making duality its creative principle,” brand co-founder and master watchmaker Denis Flageollet said of the piece in a release.
Certainly, reversible double-sided timepieces have existed for about two centuries, and their intent was generally to include different functions on each selectable side. De Bethune’s approach to the dual-face watch is interesting because the two faces work in concert to become a dual-time function, displaying the home time on the contemporary, openworked movement face and the GMT, or second time zone, on the more traditional dial face.
This design is a boldly inventive riff on the dual-face genre that stays true to the dual-time principle of the movement function, but spreads it out across the two very different display aesthetics.
Technicality Behind the Whimsy
Of course, there were some demanding technical hurdles to conquer that helped achieve this clever, yet deceptively complex approach. First off, depending on which side is selected for display, a complex set of gears and pinions is engaged to ensure that both sets of hands rotate clockwise behind the manually wound Calibre 2517 movement.
Moreover, specially designed lugs allow for an easy, smooth vertical swivel between the sides, acrobatics made even more challenging by De Bethune’s signature, already-complex floating lug system that enhances comfort and wrist fit.
Home Boy
Additionally, there is an overall sense of technicality to the movement-centric design of the home-time display. In this position, the recessed crown rides at 12 o’clock with a blue-tipped indicator riding along the familiar De Bethune “deltoid” bridge across a gauged minute ring on the rim of the dial. Hours are tallied on a small sub-dial at 6 o’clock, centered on the balance wheel, with a blue mini-deltoid indicator that echoes the larger design of the minute indicator.
Of course, this display option also showcases the sophisticated, expertly finished mechanism. Layered polishing and microlight, shot-peened, and snailed finishing decoration make for particularly nice views into operations such as the elaborate GMT function itself and the jumping-second complication.
Away Game
With a smooth, satisfying swivel to the reverse GMT side, the flavor changes to pure, classic, sober elegance. The crown now moves to 6 o’clock, and the lovely, domed anthracite dial (with a minutely guilloched center) displays traditional gilded Arabic hour indices and a mirror-image of the outer minute ring in a more classical, gilded font.
Furthermore, curved 5N rose gold Breguet-style hour and minute hands and a polished titanium central seconds hand (which is the primary stage for the mechanical jumping-second complication) complete this profound new story.
Simplifying Complexity
Time-setting and crown adjustment were also purpose-built to bring accessible user-friendliness to the DB Kind of Two GMT’s complexity: With the crown in position 3, you can easily set your reference, or home, time on the contemporary movement side. Meanwhile, position 2 performs the same function for the second time zone on the classic GMT side.
With a 43.3mm polished Grade 5 titanium case mounted on a supple, universally appealing alligator strap, the DB Kind of Two GMT not only offers a uniquely artful method for tracking two time zones, but it also provides a divergent way to express your own sense of dual identity and moods. It’s a compelling and attractive double-down, no matter how you swivel it.
The Sky’s the Limit
For De Bethune’s second (“kind of” third) debut at Dubai Watch Week, fans of the brand’s movement design (this time an updated hand-wound DB2500 QP perpetual calendar) will have to be satisfied with viewing its iconic mechanics relegated to the exhibition caseback. But that small sacrifice makes possible a big universe of starry beauty on the DB25 Perpetual Sky’s dial.
The 40mm titanium timepiece continues the watchmaker’s ongoing revamp of the DB25 collection with a uniquely “De Bethune” approach to a perpetual calendar display told amid a stunning nighttime celestial “Milky Way” backdrop.
A prominent silver-tone minimalist gauged minute ring and Roman index ring frame up the maison’s now-well-known, location-and-date customizable version of a starry sky (which we have seen in varying formats in the DB25XS “Starry Varius,” as well as previous DB25 and Kind of Two executions).
A large date indicator sub-dial takes up most of the bottom portion of the galaxy, with minimal day and month windows at the sky’s edge at 9 and 3 o’clock, respectively. Meanwhile, an artful palladium/blued steel sphere displays the current moon phase at 12 o’clock, and an unobtrusive gold disc indicates leap-year status above the dial’s center.
While this understated execution may tend to downplay the technicity of the perpetual calendar function, everything was designed so as not to detract from the gorgeous celestial dial impression.
For instance, the same deep blue of the flat-polished titanium dial and gold-leaf star colors, as well as minimized displays and peripheral dial locations, all contribute to the uninterrupted visual effect (and that includes the mirror-polished yellow gold minute and hour hands). It all works as a dial that is both clear and legible without losing its impressive “planetarium” effect.
Getting back to the perpetual calendar’s technical élan: The moonphase display delivers accuracy within a tight range of one day of deviation in 122 years. Meanwhile, the double-barrel power source is self-regulating, and details such as its titanium/white gold balance wheel, flat terminal-curve balance spring, silicon escape wheel, and triple pare-chute suspension are all the result of the maker’s exacting in-house research and development.
“Created, crafted, and tested for reliability within our manufacture, our perpetual calendar stems from artisanal work performed by a few expert hands and over many hours spent at the workbench,” added Flageollet about this timepiece. “It is this high standard that makes each watch an exceptional timepiece, of which I am particularly proud.”
Final Thoughts
Both new models are reported as limited editions, with the DB Kind of Two GMT priced at $235,000 USD and the DB25 Perpetual Sky priced at $145,000 USD.
For more information, check out the De Bethune website.