Did an alien just landed on your wrist? Nope. Are you dreaming? Almost. It’s De Bethune’s latest creation, the Dream Watch 5.2.

The Dream Watch 5.2 is a piece of art dreamed up by David Zanetta and Denis Flageollet, founders of De Bethune. A reinterpretation of the haute horlogerie, setting a new boundary of aesthetic valors for the 21st century watch making.

In creating this model, David Zanetta and Denis Flageollet escaped the confines of conventional scales and proportions. They imagined a wrist-size sculpture and reduced it to the stature of a precious stone, which they have set on the cambered back of their timepiece. The Dream Watch 5.2 is a testament to the vision shared by the two men and to their unbridled creativity, based on understanding and respect for the great master-watchmakers of the past – whose work they both transcend and exalt.

Dream Watch 5.2 stems from constant research into shapes, colours and materials. It now takes on a coat of blackened zirconium – a light and rugged metal with a black oxidised shade that is just as impervious to the effects of air and water as this timepiece is to the passing of time… Because this watch is first and foremost an artwork.

The extreme miniaturisation of its mechanism is now entirely dedicated to serving design, a field in which time is just one element among others. Representing a typical De Bethune interpretation, like a nod or a signature, a small two-tone sphere indicates the moon phases. Made of two assembled and polished half-spheres in flame-blued steel and palladium, it guides the eye towards the minimalist, digital display of the hours and minutes… and then a little further to the cabochon-cut sapphire adorning the crown.

De Bethune Dream Watch 5.2 from profile.

Technical specifications

Functions
Hours – minutes – spherical moon-phase indication

Movement
DB2144 calibre – mechanical hand-wound movement

Diameter 30 mm – 355 parts – hand-crafted finishing and decoration

Manufacture De Bethune innovations and registered patents:
Self-regulating twin barrel
Silicon/white gold balance wheel – balance-spring with flat end curve
Triple pare-chute shock-absorbing system
Spherical moon-phase indication accurate to a degree of one lunar day every 1,112 years
Silicon escape wheel

Jewelling: 32 jewels

Frequency: 28,800 vibrations per hour

Power reserve: 5 days

Case
Delta curve – hand-polished black zirconium – 7.5 cm³

Glass: domed sapphire crystal with double anti-reflective treatment

Crown at 3 o’clock adorned with a 1-carat cabochon-cut sapphire – setting in 3 positions

Back: solid – polished grade 5 titanium – bearing the signatures of David Zanetta and Denis Flageollet Display

Jumping-hour aperture at 3 o’clock in blacked zirconium – analogue minutes indicator on a rotating disc – De Bethune spherical moon-phase indication in flame-blued steel and palladium at the centre

Strap
Extra-supple alligator leather with pin buckle

To see the entire collection of De Bethune Dream watches, click here.