Geneva Watch Days 2025: De Bethune Celebrates Its Signature Colour With The DB28XS Kind Of Blue Tourbillon
2 min read
Few watchmakers have embraced colour as profoundly as De Bethune has with blue. Over the years, this hue has become almost synonymous with the independent Manufacture, symbolising both its avant-garde creativity and its devotion to traditional craftsmanship. Now, De Bethune deepens this identity with the introduction of a tourbillon version of its DB28 Kind of Blue, a 39 mm marvel that fuses technical ingenuity with sculptural beauty.
The case, crafted in blued polished grade 5 titanium, measures 38.7 mm across and just 8 mm thick, its floating lugs patented in 2006 ensuring comfort and flexibility on the wrist. The sapphire crystal, with its double anti-reflective coating, allows the eye to take in every detail, while the screwed case back in blued titanium mirrors the same refined treatment.
At its heart beats the hand-wound calibre DB2009V7, a movement that epitomises De Bethune’s pioneering spirit. Equipped with a five-day power reserve supported by a self-regulating twin barrel, it brings together some of the Manufacture’s most celebrated innovations. The titanium balance wheel, with white gold inserts, is optimised for stability against temperature variations and air penetration. The patented De Bethune balance spring with a flat terminal curve ensures precision, while a silicon escape wheel underscores the brand’s forward-thinking use of materials. At 6 o’clock, the ultra-light 30-second tourbillon cage in silicon and titanium—an innovation first unveiled in 2008—delivers both technical performance and visual theatre.
The dial is a landscape of contrasts and textures. A titanium hour ring with microlight decoration frames polished hour markers, while the minutes and seconds are read on a blued circular satin ring. The triangular central bridge, also in blued polished titanium, adds depth to the composition, complemented by polished titanium hands that catch the light with elegance.
With the DB28 Kind of Blue Tourbillon, De Bethune doesn’t just celebrate blue—it elevates it into a signature language of watchmaking art, where aesthetic daring meets uncompromising mechanical mastery.
