Hublot | Featured Brand at Time+Tide Watches

17.04.2021
Thor Svaboe

Ready, set, GO! The top 5 sports watches of Watches & Wonders

This is turning out to be a year of stark contrasts. While some manufacturers insist on microscopic adjustments to tried and trusted case sizes and materials, the flipside of the horological coin is marked by bravado. A bravado in contrasts, from flashing neon sun-yellow ceramic to the demure elegance of brushed silver. Never has our diverse taste been served with such deliciously varied dishes that offer hints of a strong recovery after a dark year. In one of the most hotly contested categories, my thoughts on the top 5 sports watches of Watches & Wonders show this to full effect. Hublot Big Bang Unico Yellow Magic Don’t be wrist-shy. Why wear an understated, black dial watch, when you can rock the cocktail party (a rocktail party?) with a SMASH of bright yellow? It’s not small, but this time it is a calmer 42mm, well as calm as you can get with a chunky yellow sun strapped to your wrist. What this is, aside from being traditional Swiss craftsmanship inside a very loud suit, is a mind-transforming device: the Hublot Big Bang Unico Yellow Magic will override any trace of negativity that resides within your body and imbue you with a… Read More

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12.04.2021
Zach Blass

INTRODUCING: The Hublot Big Bang Integral Tourbillon Full Sapphire

Hublot truly is a pioneer in watch materials. Their motto “The Art of Fusion” is not just a tagline, it is a prime directive that drives all of their manufacturing. By thinking ahead, and pushing the boundaries of what a manufacturer can do, they are able to execute things many (if not all) brands are not capable of producing. There are brands who work with sapphire, sure, but with the new Hublot Big Bang Integral Tourbillon Full Sapphire – a limited edition of 30 pieces – the brand has made the first Big Bang that utilises the robust material almost entirely, including its bracelet. The sapphire case is 43mm in diameter and 15.25mm thick. Its case presence is more than just its larger dimensions. The Hublot Big Bang Integral Tourbillon Full Sapphire is incredibly faceted throughout. The brilliant material is incredibly tough to scratch while worn, which means it is also very difficult to shape during the manufacturing process. Hublot explains, “Sapphire is a very demanding material, growing slowly for months and expanding into large solid blocks of pure transparency. While being cut into shape, sapphire is not only the hardest case material but also one of the hardest to… Read More

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10.04.2021
Shane Hegarty

INTRODUCING: Hublot Big Bang Sang Bleu II: A trio in ceramic unlike anything you’ve ever seen

When Time+Tide last looked at a Hublot Big Bang Sang Bleu II, we described it as a “geometric ice palace” for the wrist. Well, the three new Sang Bleu II ceramic editions – coming in grey, blue and white – contain one colour that not only doubles down on that idea but also answers the question “what watch would Superman’s dad Jor-El have worn inside the Fortress of Solitude?” Under its creative director, tattooist Maxime Plescia-Büchi, Sang Bleu is a creative agency involved in a dizzying range of disciplines, from body art to typefaces, fine art to media, logo design to artist collaborations. Its work with Hublot is in its sixth year, with fruitful results built around an utterly distinctive structure that layers geometric shapes from case to skeletonised dial and yet maintains a deeply impressive equilibrium. The Sang Bleu II is also a flyback chronograph, using the in-house HUB1240.MXM movement with a 72-hour power reserve, and the overall design displays the time in a way that forces you to take in the details. You glance at the hour but end up lost in a fruitless count of exactly how many shapes are in there. And then you realise you… Read More

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17.04.2021
Thor Svaboe

Ready, set, GO! The top 5 sports watches of Watches & Wonders

This is turning out to be a year of stark contrasts. While some manufacturers insist on microscopic adjustments to tried and trusted case sizes and materials, the flipside of the horological coin is marked by bravado. A bravado in contrasts, from flashing neon sun-yellow ceramic to the demure elegance of brushed silver. Never has our diverse taste been served with such deliciously varied dishes that offer hints of a strong recovery after a dark year. In one of the most hotly contested categories, my thoughts on the top 5 sports watches of Watches & Wonders show this to full effect. Hublot Big Bang Unico Yellow Magic Don’t be wrist-shy. Why wear an understated, black dial watch, when you can rock the cocktail party (a rocktail party?) with a SMASH of bright yellow? It’s not small, but this time it is a calmer 42mm, well as calm as you can get with a chunky yellow sun strapped to your wrist. What this is, aside from being traditional Swiss craftsmanship inside a very loud suit, is a mind-transforming device: the Hublot Big Bang Unico Yellow Magic will override any trace of negativity that resides within your body and imbue you with a… Read More

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09.04.2021
Shane Hegarty

INTRODUCING: The Hublot Big Bang Unico Yellow Magic is like the summer sun lighting up a New York taxi

Occasionally watch people will complain about how little anybody notices what’s on their wrist. You’re wearing a good watch. You’re dying to tell people about it. Nobody bites or even notices. Well, that’s hardly ever been a problem with a Hublot and it certainly won’t be an issue with the Big Bang Unico Yellow Magic ceramic chronograph, newly released at Watches and Wonders. People would have to make an effort not to notice this on the wrist – and it will undoubtedly be worn by people who want to be noticed. But it’s the latest in Hublot’s line of ceramic chronographs that isn’t just about the bold colours, but how they get there. It took four years of development for Hublot to perfect a technique that produces a brightly coloured, particularly hard-wearing ceramic without burning the pigment in the process. Having led off with red in 2018, and later a blue, yellow was the inevitable next step along the primary colours. Hublot has emphasised the solar aspect of the colour and the polished yellow does have a summer sun lighting up a New York taxi cab vibrancy to it. That colour is continued across the Arabic numerals, hands, indices, minutes… Read More

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01.04.2021
Nick Kenyon

WTF is a “luxury watch NFT” and why is Jean-Claude Biver selling one of his watch?

You’ve probably heard of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) over the last month or so and for good reason. NFTs are exploding in popularity, seemingly out of nowhere. If you haven’t come across NFTs, or haven’t yet tried to wrap your head around the initially impenetrable world of cryptocurrency and blockchain as they collide with collectible markets, well, fair enough. But let me explain in simple terms what an NFT is and why it’s potentially so significant that Jean-Claude Biver is selling a luxury watch NFT. Very broadly speaking, an NFT is a piece of digital real-estate that is tracked on a blockchain, which is a record of digital transactions that can’t be tampered with. A non-fungible token is unique and isn’t interchangeable with anything else. If you trade one Bitcoin for another, you’ve got exactly the same thing that you started with. That isn’t possible with an NFT as they are all uniquely identifiable. NFTs are a part of the Ethereum blockchain – which is a cryptocurrency just like Bitcoin – and is the currency that NFTs are traded in. What does all that mean? It means that digital art, music, videos or images, basically anything digital can be defined as… Read More

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31.03.2021
Thor Svaboe

INTRODUCING: The Hublot Classic Fusion Chronograph Shepard Fairey is a mystical titanium sculpture for your wrist

Hublot is no stranger to artistic collaborations – this is already their third one for 2021. At LVMH Watch Week, they presented another razor-sharp ceramic collaboration with Richard Orlinski, plus the diamond-studded “smiling flower” of Takashi Murakami. Now American street artist Shepard Fairey – best known for his Obama “Hope” poster – has collaborated on the Hublot Classic Fusion Chronograph Shepard Fairey, a watch that doubles as a mandala-engraved sculpture dedicated to the cycle of life. This enigmatic piece of wrist art is based on the slender Classic Fusion range which, with a few exceptions, usually represents the more formal voice of Hublot. This time, Shepard Fairey takes us on a journey imbued by a feeling of shamanic crafts, like a talisman for the wrist to ward off evil spirits (pandemic ones?) and bring good fortune. Shepard Fairey is an artist bringing his politically influential art through everything from graphic design, painting, illustration and street art. Well known as the founder of the OBEY clothing company, it only seems fitting that he contributes to wrist-worn art, and what an introduction this titanium chronograph is. Far from the usual high-tech weapons of Hublot, Fairey brings with him a deeper sensibility with… Read More

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