The De Bethune DB28xs Starry Seas

De Bethune’s DB28 collection is not, of course, the only family of watches that De Bethune makes; the company is at least as well known for the sheer variety of its designs, as it is for the DB28 itself. However, the DB28 collection is I think the series of watches most immediately identifiable with De Bethune, and the floating lug system, and, often, distinctive triangular bridge visible through an open dial, have become signature design elements for De Bethune as a whole.

For various reasons, De Bethune’s DB28 have usually been on the larger side, although not excessively so – between 42-43mm, more or less. Visually, the DB28 watches wear large, partly thanks to the floating lug system and partly thanks to the deployment of a number of different, striking design elements; the articulated lugs, however, make wearing a DB28 very comfortable. Still, the basic design of the DB28 doesn’t necessitate any particular minimum case diameter, and to offer the DB28’s iconic look in a slightly smaller case size, De Bethune’s just introduced the DB28xs Starry Seas.

At 38.7mm, this is the smallest watch in the DB28 collection, which makes it accessible to anyone who wants all the design and watchmaking innovation of DB28 watches, but in a slightly more flexible case size. The basic design has all the DB28 hallmarks, including the floating lugs, crown at 12:00, and the use of titanium in the case and and as a design element.

The movement, caliber DB2005, is also classic De Bethune – the company uses it in the Starry Varius watches, and it has a number of the De Bethune’s technical innovations, including self-regulating twin mainspring barrels, and a balance in blued titanium with white gold inserts (the subject of a patent in 2016). The caliber also has a flat balance spring with a self-centering terminal curve (basically, a flat spring with all the technical advantages of a Breguet overcoil) a silicon escape wheel, and the visually distinctive pare-chute anti shock system.

On the dial side, though, is something that De Bethune has never done before and which, they say, no one has ever done before. The dial is heat-blued titanium and of course, De Bethune has used heat-blued titanium, both on dials and dial elements, before.

Here, however, is something new. The dial is engraved with a guilloché pattern De Bethune is calling “random guilloché” – here, a series of parallel ridges which flow across the dial, and give the visual impression of ripples on the surface of the ocean at night. Distributed across the dial is a scattering of white gold stars. The effect is that of looking down onto the waves at night, with the stars reflected in the water – hence, “Starry Seas.” It’s a very evocative design – with more than a suggestion of the relationship between navigation and precision timekeeping.

It’s also a very clever visual illusion. While the ripples do appear to be random, they are, if you look closely, bilaterally symmetrical down the vertical axis of the dial. The number and size of the peaks and valleys in each ripple, as well as the depth of the crevices between them, vary from one ripple to the next and that, combined with the asymmetrical distribution of the stars, reinforces the impression of randomness and great care has been taken by De Bethune in the design, to make a bilaterally symmetrical pattern seem a natural phenomenon. It’s one of the most deceptively simple dial designs I’ve ever seen.

The DB28xs will retail in the US for $90,000; it is not a limited edition but like all De Bethune watches, production per year is limited. To find out more about the design history of De Bethune, check out our article, “Design at De Bethune: Two Decades of Evolution and Revolution” and for full specs and details, view the DB28xs at De Bethune.