, as well as how the haute horlogerie maison is able to live up to its motto of “Be First, Different and Unique”. Read on for a glimpse at the behind-the-scenes decisions that make watchmaking come alive…
When was the decision made to design an integrated bracelet, such as the Big Bang Integral?
We decided to create a bracelet three years ago, but I had been thinking about it for quite some time before that. We tried something like this with the Classic Fusion, but that does not have a strong identity as the Big Bang Integral, and of course Hublot is known for rubber, not bracelet. But 15 years after the launch of the Big Bang, I thought that we needed to offer a bracelet in our collection, but not just a bracelet to put on a watch.
We decided to start from the bracelet, and add the watch itself, so we re-designed the watch totally. We started with the bracelet, and to find a unique design in a bracelet is not that easy. There are around three bracelets in the industry that are iconic, and the space for design is very limited because you need the links. So, we tried to do something that is of very good quality and is comfortable to wear, and then top it off with a Big Bang watch that has a UNICO movement, which would give the bracelet an identity. The Big Bang Integral comes in three versions: black ceramic, King Gold or titanium. The black ceramic is very important because when we are talking of a fully integrated watch and bracelet in ceramic, there are not that many in the market.
The portion of the bracelet in the watch business is the majority; nearly 60-70 per cent of the watch industry is the bracelet. We decided that we needed to have at least one offering in that segment. I know it won’t be anything like 50 per cent of our business, but I would be happy if it was at least 10 per cent of our business in the future.
Can you tell us a bit more about the bracelet, which is so beautifully crafted?
It took us three years’ time, because we took time to make sure we came out with a perfect product. Once we had a design, we did prototypes, went back to re-design, then prototypes, … it has been a really long process to come out with this bracelet. The strong identity comes from the facets, and the mixture between polished and brushed surfaces. We worked a lot on ensuring the comfort level in wearing the bracelet and it has been a long process of doing the design, the prototype, conducting tests to see how it would work mechanically, and so on.
How important is the Spirit of Big Bang to Hublot? What was the reason for bringing out the MECA-10 in the Spirit of Big Bang line?
Our two main pillars still remain the Big Bang and Classic Fusion, but the Spirit of Big Bang is becoming our third pillar. This is because we have seen a lot of commercial success with the Spirit of Big Bang without much of advertising or communications, especially with our Chinese clientele. It has now become an important part of our business; last year, it was responsible for 15 per cent of our total sales. If we look only at the Chinese market, then it jumps to 25 per cent of our total sales; this means one-quarter of our watches to the Chinese is the Spirit of Big Bang.
We decided to come up with more offerings in this line; we thought the MECA-10 with a tonneau-shaped movement would be an interesting. We thought that the Spirit of Big Bang would adapt really well to a MECA-10 movement.
How has the response been for the Big Bang MP-11 SAXEM in Green Sapphire, which you recently launched? How was Hublot able to create that rich green hue in sapphire, which no other watch brand has been able to do?
It is not actually sapphire; we tried to do it in sapphire, but the green was really light. There are some chemical issues when you work with green colour in sapphire, so we worked with another company in Germany. We outsourced it, but obviously our developers were working with them. We named it SAXEM; this is similar to sapphire but doesn’t have the same structure. With this new material, which is really hard – not hard as sapphire, but close to it – we have been able to get an emerald green colour. It took quite some time to develop this and we decided to offer 20 pieces only as we are in the beginning of this process. We will definitely bring this green in other collections, perhaps the UNICO or the Spirit of Big Bang in the future because we believe the result will be very impressive.
Hublot has till date bought out watches in ceramic – the Red Magic, the Ceramic Blue and the Matt Green. Which has been the most successful among the three?
Red Magic of course; no other brand has been able to create such a vibrant red in ceramic. It was a really long industrial process to realise the red because you need pigments to get the colour. To produce ceramic, you need to work on it under very high temperatures in the oven. We actually have got a patent on the process for getting the Red Ceramic. It is still not an easy process and, perhaps this year, we will bring out 300-400 watches. It is a super-complicated process, but we are happy to do it as the results are wonderful, and we are not able to fulfil the demand for it.
Hublot is already a part of many worlds, such as football, golf, and pretty much every other sport; is there any world that you think Hublot should enter soon?
Today, Hublot is not only a part in the world of sport, but also other universes such as art, music, lifestyle. The world of arts is one that we believe has still more new projects and partnerships to offer us. We have already done tattoos (with Sang Bleu) and sculptures (with Orlinski). There is so more space there; we are presenting the Classic Fusion Cruz-Diez for the kinetic arts (with Carlos Cruz-Diez). The watch is a piece of art; of course, watchmaking is an art on which we are constantly working, but we can also be inspired by other works of art.
A painting is much more difficult to interpret, unless you just have the painting on the dial but that is really not enough. We need art that we can really translate into a watch; there are probably new possibilities in the future. Something similar to the new Sang Bleu; perhaps another tattoo or other forms of art, maybe architecture.
Hublot has entered the world of golf with the Big Bang Unico Golf; how has the feedback been for that? And how hard was it to create the watch?
At Hublot, we always feel that we have to be first or be unique in whatever we do. In golf, we are not the first; there are already big brands that are well established. We wanted to do things differently, so we decided to bring out a mechanical product dedicated to golf. Nobody has done that, so at least that is different. We also have our ambassadors for golf, such as Dustin Johnson, Justin Rose, and Patrick Reed. We are also trying to work with golf in the fun way; we want to sponsor golf as a fun sport, and not as PG tournaments. That space is already taken by big brands, so we want to have fun. We sponsored Topgolf, where you play golf, but you also enjoy yourself. We are not sponsoring a professional version of golf. This is not a professional game that we are sponsoring but the fun approach. The sales of the watch has been quite good; this model seems easy but it was quite complicated to make a watch that can be worn while playing. We had to do a lot of tests to finally come with this model. The watches are really successful, and I am very surprised and happy.
