De Bethune Receives The Prize For The Best Watch Of The Year In The Prestigious “Chronometry” Category
Press Release – GPHG 2018
De Bethune Receives The Prize For The Best Watch Of The Year In The Prestigious “Chronometry” Category
At the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève award ceremony that took place this evening at the Théâtre du Léman, De Bethune was immensely proud to receive the prestigious Chronometry Watch Prize for its new DB25 Starry Varius Chronomètre Tourbillon model.
In accepting the award, Pierre Jacques, CEO and President De Bethune said: “We should all believe in our lucky star! Just a year after taking the brand in hand again with Denis Flageollet, it is a tremendous honour and joy for us to receive this prize in one of the key categories of the competition, which rewards technical excellence in our constant quest for precision. This award gives us an enormous boost of confidence and confirms the soundness of our approach to the art of watchmaking: creating to inspire dreams, creating to innovate, producing less, but better; never resting on our laurels.... We are currently enjoying a wonderful new lease of life at De Bethune, with the support of all our watchmakers, our staff as a whole and our partners around the world. Our innovative and creative abilities have remained intact and are indeed stronger than ever (you will recall that De Bethune won the “Aiguille d’Or” Grand Prix in 2011 and the Best Chronograph Watch Prize in 2014). This Chronometry Watch Prize represents a magnificent encouragement and rewards the self-sacrifice and exceptional work of our thirty or so employees who have never ceased to believe in our lucky star. We wish to thank them all from the bottom of our hearts"
A few features of the DB25 Starry Varius Chronomètre Tourbillon:
Gravity is one of the greatest enemies of mechanical watches. Based on the tourbillon that Abraham- Louis Breguet invented for his 18th century pocket watches, De Bethune has sought to optimise it on today’s wristwatches. The equation? To be more efficient on a wrist engaged in rapid and disordered movements, the tourbillon must have the highest possible frequency and fastest rotation speed. In creating a titanium and silicon tourbillon with a frequency of 36,000 vibrations/hour, an extraordinarily light carriage (0.18 grams, the lightest ever created in the industry) spinning on its axis every 30 seconds, comprising a total of 63 components (the lightest of which weighs less than 0.0001 grams!), this feat is easier to describe than to achieve.
The 42mm-diameter watch is equipped with the mechanical manual-winding DB2109V4 calibre, entirely designed, developed and produced within the De Bethune workshops in L’Auberson, Switzerland. A jumping seconds display ensures precise read-off. The state-of-the-art titanium balance-wheel with white gold inserts has been optimised for temperature changes and air penetration, regulated by means of the De Bethune balance-spring with its patented flat terminal curve which maintains a perfect centre of gravity.
The test report on the watch, measured in six positions, indicates the excellent results achieved by the model, with 0.00 sec. /day in all positions. This confirms that combining the jumping seconds complication with the tourbillon has in no way been detrimental to the precision of this chronometer.
Finally, the famous De Bethune starry sky with its gold-studded blued titanium dial can be personalised in accordance with the customer’s wishes (with a date and a geographical location). The traditional gold leaf method has been complemented by laser beam micro-milling to create a Milky Way effect.