Not all images were able to load for printing. Please close the print window and try again. The New, and Splendid De Bethune DB25 Digitale
Revisiting its digital time display, De Bethune splashes out with in-house decorative techniques to adorn the dial of this beautiful watch.
De Bethune, a co-founder of Geneva Watch Days, returns for the seventh edition with a beautiful piece that revisits the brand’s digital time display. Featured across various models, the first digital display appeared in 2006 with a sophisticated in-line calendar displaying the day, date and month, with jumping hours and a scrolling minute disc. Equipped with slightly fewer functions, De Bethune introduced the DB28 Digitale in 2014 with jumping hours and rotating minutes, powered by its in-house calibre DB2144, which has also been used inside the incredible Dream Watch DW5 spaceship. For 2026, De Bethune has selected its more classical, elegant DB25 family for the digital treatment, and the results speak for themselves.
A counterweight to the more futuristic DB28 family, the DB25 collection features round, sloping, drum-shaped cases with hollowed bullet-shaped lugs. The new DB25 Digitale is presented in a 42mm case, with a height of 11.9mm, crafted from gleaming, mirror-polished titanium.
A recurring theme of the DB25 is the celestial Starry Varius, a highly polished and heated titanium disc that captures the magic of a star-studded night sky. Another in-house decorative technique, known as random guilloché, was recently featured on the DB25xs Sand Winds. Uniting both techniques, the DB25 Digitale presents a starlit nocturnal sky presiding over a tranquil river that reflects the moonlight.
The minimalist digital display, with a window for the jumping hours at noon and the rotating minute indicator at 6 o’clock, frees the watch from hands and hour markers, allowing an unimpeded view of the dial. A spherical moon composed of two polished hemispheres – one in palladium and the other in flame-blued steel – sits directly in the centre. Surrounded by a night sky with hand-applied grey gold pins of different diameters representing the stars, the spherical moon keeps track of the moon phases with an accuracy of within one lunar day every 1,112 years.
Demarcated by a silver ring that connects to the frame of the jumping hours, the central area is bathed in De Bethune’s signature random hand-guilloché, forming a rippling surface of haphazard undulating lines engraved in the hard-grade heat-blued titanium. The random guilloché is framed by a more traditional barleycorn guilloché-decorated ring with an aperture extending from 5 to 7 o’clock for the rotating minutes disc. The arrow-shaped minutes indicator is placed at 6 o’clock on the peripheral blued titanium ring, which is also set with grey gold pin stars.
Beneath the serene scenery is a sophisticated micro ball-bearing system that drives the jumping hour display and the rotating minutes disc. The caseback reveals the third-generation version of the DB2144 in-house manual-winding movement. Shielded by De Bethune’s hallmark deltoid bridge, decorated for the first time with a random guilloché motif, the DB2144V3 is packed with patented innovations and delivers an impressive 5-day power reserve.
The watch is paired with a supple dark blue alligator strap with a polished titanium pin buckle. Price is upon request. More information at debethune.ch.
