Is the narrative about Hublot being a footballer’s watch getting old yet? It’s definitely still relevant but I think it does a disservice to some of Hublot’s more interesting horological creations. For example, they are a leading name when it comes to the creation of coloured sapphire cases, such as the new Big Bang Unico Water Blue Sapphire that we saw in Geneva.
Sapphire is an incredibly difficult material to work with because the only material that’s harder than it is diamond. So, you have to have top of the line tools to even have a hope in heaven of making an entire watch body from the material. Add on top of that the extra difficulty of adding colour to the material without making it opaque and you have an incredibly delicate balancing act on your hands.
As the name suggests, Big Bang Unico Water Blue is designed to emulate the light, crystal clear blue of tropical waters. It’s the second model to use this colour after the MP-11. One of the interesting considerations is the Big Bang Unico’s layered construction – they’ve managed to achieve an effect where the entire piece appears the same shade whether you’re looking at the lugs, bezel, body or anywhere else. The other elements of hardware such as screws, crown and chronograph pushers appear to float in the sapphire. The kind of watch you want to get into different lighting scenarios to study each aspect of it.
For the dial, it’s an open worked Big Bang display. There’s no actual dial per se, more a sapphire overlay on top of the exposed movement. It’s a bit too industrial for my tastes though it does fit the whole exposed appearance of a sapphire watch. The gentle blue colour of the case though makes me want to see it with a summer ready dial like the gradient of the Christopher Ward Atoll.
On a slightly more technical level, it’s a bicompax chronograph display with central hours, minutes and chronograph seconds with subdials for running seconds and 60-minute timer. Running in a ring below the hour scale you can the grey numerals of the date function, which is read through a slight aperture at 3 o’clock. It’s quite hard to read due to being tone on tone so it blends into the noise of the movement.
The movement itself is the MHUB1280, an automatic calibre with 72-hour power reserve. The oscillating rotor is made from tungsten, a popular material in high end rotors because its density means it has a good amount of motion as you move your wrist to impart energy into the watch. It’s visible though the sapphire exhibition window, though technically it’s visible though every part of the translucent case.
As for price, sapphire watches don’t tend to be accessible and at £119,000, the Hublot Big Bang Unico Water Blue Sapphire certainly lives up to that. Not a watch that the vast majority of collectors will ever own. Yet, seeing it in person, you can’t help but admire the effort that has gone into crafting it.
Price and Specs:
More details at Hublot.
Maybe I’m just too vanilla in terms of my watch preferences (I tend to veer towards classic dress watches), so my comment on the latest Hublot will be no surprise. I just don’t understand why some of these high end (translate to high cost!) watch makers release something that is, frankly, hideous. This latest watch looks as though it has been shifted in time and came from one of original plastics Swatch knock off’s, that were cheap and cheerful, and was generally bought for a rough and tumble beach holiday and then consigned to the back of the drawer, but no, just because it is defined as being “a sapphire cased watch” (and that’s not an accurate description as a sapphire is a natural gemstone), they recreate something that looked cheap in the first place, and now charge a kings ransom for the gullible. As the phrase goes: imitation is the sinserest form of flattery, but not in this case, it still looks cheap (reminds me of the old Dolly Parton quip: do you know how much it costs me to look this cheap).