For all the PR and social media value of a neon yellow sapphire crystal Big Bang Tourbillon Automatic costing £182,000, it will be recreations of Hublot’s very first hit watch in the 1980s, the Classic Fusion, that will deliver volume sales.
This has long been Hublot’s strategy: grab attention for low-run highly complex limited editions, often boutique-only pieces, while building the brand on the shoulders of the more attainable (and, for most, more wearable) Classic Fusion line, which customers gobble up from multibrand retail partners.
And both the Big Bang and Classic Fusions both benefit from Hublot’s investment into advanced movement manufacture and development of innovative materials like SAXEM, or Sapphire Aluminium oXide and rare Earth Mineral, which is essentially sapphire, but with added rare earth elements like thulium, holmium and chromium.
SAXEM, which took years to develop, is used to make the transparent scratch-proof case of the skeletonised Big Bang Tourbillon Automatic in neon yellow.
Only 50 are being made of the watch, which uses the HUB6035 Manufacture automatic tourbillon movement.
Save the Rhinos
Almost as much of a statement piece, and with a good cause attached to it as well, is the Hublot Big Bang Unico SORAI Time for Rhinos, a watch that supports efforts to save Indian Rhinos through a charity fronted by England Cricket legend Kevin Pieterson, who is an ambassador for Hublot.
Made from grey ceramic as touch as a rhino’s hide, the limited edition of 100 pieces has an openworked dial and strap featuring the glowing colours of a sunset in South Africa, where 80% of the world’s total population of rhinos reside.
It is selling for £20,800, with some of that price going to SORAI, which will use the money for helicopters with mounted cameras, education and support of rangers on the ground.
Hublot’s banker
Back to the Hublot banker, a full collection of watches based on the original Classic Fusion that launched in the 1980s in a shocking — for the time — combination of a precious metal gold watch head and a black rubber strap.
The original Classic Fusion came in a 36mm yellow gold case, but recreations for 2023 are made in three new sizes: 33mm, 38mm and 42 mm.
In each size, Hublot is offering models made from gold, titanium or black ceramic, all with a vertical brushed finish.
The 33mm models use quartz movements while the larger pieces house MHUB1110 three-hand with date automatic calibers.
Prices range from £5,600 for a 33mm model in titanium or £15,300 for the gold version up to £8,600 for the 42mm black ceramic piece or £20,400 for the larger black on gold watch.
