The Bold Colour of the New De Bethune DB28XS Yellow Tones

If you want to talk about an emblematic design of independent watchmaking, then the DB28 should be on the list. Born in 2010, this watch, with its incredible design, would become a working laboratory of innovation for the brand, developing titanium surface treatments and unprecedented materials for the movement. The DB28 and its floating lugs, which can be seen here in all its versions, has since evolved in several directions, from sporty with the GS to ultra-thin with the XP or, for today’s matters, compact and slender with the XS. The latter has been the centre of all attention recently for De Bethune, which now unveils a bold and polarising version, the DB28XS Yellow Tones. 

Presented in 2023 with the Starry Seas edition, the De Bethune DB28XS took everything that made the 28 collection so appealing and made it slimmer and, mostly, much more compact at 39mm in diameter. Since its debut in 2010, the DB28 has adopted many personalities, appearing in openworked iterations like the Steel Wheels with tourbillon, in closed dial versions incarnated by the fascinating Digitale with jumping hours, in cosmic blue, in mellow yellow and, to fete its tenth anniversary in 2020, in ultra-thin XP cases. The latter was the first step in the evolution of the DB28 collection, preserving the large 43mm diameter while pairing it with a sub-8mm case.

The DB28XS is, by De Bethune’s standards, a small watch with a 38.7mm diameter and an 8mm thickness. Combine this with the astonishing comfort delivered by the articulated lugs and the lightness of titanium, and you have a watch that is a joy to wear. However, this new version compensates for the shyness of the dimensions by an incredible boldness of colour… In the same vein as the mellow yellow, the case of the new DB28XS Yellow Tones is… yellow. But it’s not the result of a coating. Instead, alchemist Denis Flageollet, the blacksmithing and watchmaking mastermind behind De Bethune, presents a case (and multiple other parts) rendered yellow thanks to a thermal-oxidation process.

The yellow, polished titanium theme continues on the dial side. Almost all elements of the display and upper side of the movement have been rendered in yellow too, starting with the circular satin-finished titanium hours and minutes ring with yellow polished titanium hour markers, the titanium barrel bridge, the titanium dial base, the transversal balance bridge and the polished titanium hands. What’s left in classic horological tones are the moving elements of the movement, such as the two barrels and the balance wheel. Everything, as you’d expect from DB, is bold and avant-garde, but finished in the most traditional way.

Powering the DB28XS Yellow Tones is the in-house, hand-wound calibre DB2115V14. This large movement is made of 244 components and, thanks to its twin-barrel architecture, stores up to 6 days of energy. It runs at a 4Hz frequency and is equipped with all of the brand’s delicacies, such as a titanium balance with white gold inserts, De Bethune’s balance spring with flat terminal curve, a silicon escape wheel and a triple pare-chute shock-absorbing system. The power reserve is shown on the back side.

Worn on a brown alligator strap, closed by a yellow polished titanium pin buckle (a khaki canvas strap is also available), the De Bethune DB28XS Yellow Tones retails for USD 115,000. For more details, please visit www.debethune.ch.