Green on Titanium

New Version of the De Bethune DB25 Perpetual Calendar. 

Unsurprisingly, visitors at this year's Dubai Watch Week saw a large number of watches in various different shades of green. There's a perfectly reasonable explanation for this: the models which brands specially prepared for the region's top retailer and organizer of the watch show aimed to please local clients in a region where the color green holds important symbolic meaning in Islam.
 

A number of models went green to mark the 50th anniversary since the formation of the UAE. Examples worth mentioning include the Furlan Marri UAE 50th Anniversary Edition equipped with the Meca-Quartz movement which won the 2021 GPHG Horological Revelation Prize; the Independence UAE Edition by NORQAIN, which sports a combination of Eastern Arabic and Arabic numerals; the Garrick S4 Year of the 50th; and the "green-eyed" Joker UAE 50th Anniversary by Konstantin Chaykin.

Another watch on this list is the new version of De Bethune's perpetual calendar. The release of this watch wasn't timed to coincide with the UAE's celebration marking the anniversary of its statehood, although it turned out to be a happy coincidence. The latest De Bethune DB25 Perpetual Calendar debuts a number of new features all in one go.

Besides its olive-green dial, the watch has been given a case in titanium. The series has already included watches with silver, brown and anthracite dials, as well as a shade of salmon pink. Case materials which have been used before the latest model versions in white gold, rose gold and platinum. The arrangement and architecture of the dial remain unchanged.

The guilloché on the middle section of the dial divides it into twelve sectors, which are encircled by a common scale with classic Roman numerals and an outer "railroad" minute track with Arabic numerals at the 5-minute intervals. For all its indications, the dial of the De Bethune DB25 Perpetual Calendar Green doesn't look as if it's overloaded.

That's thanks to a careful approach to sizing and choosing the right spot for the lower date subdial and the upper moon-phase display. Apart from that, the weekday and month apertures have been minimized and placed close to the outer scale which frees up the center.

The crown has three pull-out positions which allow the time and date to be adjusted and the automatic caliber DB2324 to be wound. The discrete correctors in the caseband control the months, days of the week and moon phase, although this highly precise indication is accurate to one lunar day every 122 years.

The dial's classic appearance is contrasted with the architecture of the movement, which can be viewed through the transparent caseback. It's comprised of 425 components and includes a wealth of innovative solutions by De Bethune: from a balance spring with flat terminal curve to a proprietary triple pare-chute shock-absorbing system and bimetallic balance made of titanium and gray gold.