News: De Bethune DB25L Milky Way Watch
One of the many things people admire about luxury Swiss watches is the intricate, complicated engineering, shrunk down to a microscopic scale, transforming something vast and complex into a compact little package to be worn on the wrist. De Bethune has applied this same principle to its new DB25L Milky Way Watch, which transports the billions of stars of the Milky Way Galaxy onto the dial of a wristwatch—well, close enough anyway.
Obviously all of the many stars of the galaxy we call home can’t be depicted on a single watch. Instead, they are represented on a rich, heat-blued titanium dial, hand-pinned and laser-etched in gold leaf to give a familiar, otherworldly glow that mimics starlight. Above the sprinkling of gold-flecked stars sits a three dimensional moonphase indicator at the 12 o’clock position, which is crafted from both blued titanium and palladium to create the effect of the different phases of the Moon. The dial is studded with 12 white gold hour markers, spherical in shape and complementing the golden stars that punctuate the dial.
Inside the watch is the hand-wound in-house caliber DB2105v2, which offers a six-day power reserve and has a fittingly sci-fi design inspiration. The aforementioned moonphase complication only needs readjusting every 122 years, and is accurate to a single lunar day within that period.
Around this sumptuous dial is an elegant 44mm platinum case that features slender, open-worked lugs. Subtly tucked into the metal around the sides of the case are 66 baguette-cute diamonds that add to the watch’s sense of brilliance, while not overpowering the rest of the watch. Of course, a watch with such astronomical good looks doesn’t come cheap; the De Bethune DB25L Milky Way watch retails at 225,000 CHF, or £179,375.
