Back in 2021 we covered the release of the Hublot Big Bang Tourbillon Automatic Orange Sapphire. A watch that stood out for its impressive use of coloured sapphire crystal, a material that’s notoriously difficult to produce. In the introduction to that article I quipped that Hublot had almost completed the sapphire rainbow and in the years since they’ve done their best to complete the colour spectrum. However, some colours are simply too difficult to make in sapphire, which brings us to the new Hublot Big Bang Tourbillon Automatic Green SAXEM.
SAXEM is a crystal material that shares many similarities to sapphire crystal such as its translucent appearance and high scratch resistance. However, there is a crucial difference. Where sapphire crystal has a triangular structure at a molecular level, SAXEM is cubic. This fundamentally changes how light passes through the material and completely changes what is possible to achieve in terms of colour and intensity.
The rich emerald tone of the Big Bang Tourbillon Automatic Green SAXEM is impossible to achieve in traditional sapphire crystal. The same is true of the neon yellow edition they released back in 2023. Evidently there is a quality about the green-yellow spectrum that is ill suited for sapphire but that works great in SAXEM.
As for the watch itself, it’s the same Big Bang Tourbillon Automatic as we’ve known for more than half a decade at this point, although the SAXEM versions sit at 44mm as opposed to their sapphire counterparts that are 43mm or 45mm, depending on the colour. It has a skeletonised display with central hours and minutes, and a tourbillon at 6 o’clock. Considering that it’s a skeleton, it’s actually a very dark dial with grey Arabic numerals and a smoky grey sapphire disk below the time indication.
The movement on display is the MHUB6035, which has a 72-hour power reserve supplied by the micro-rotor visible at 12 o’clock. Interestingly, the rotor is presented on the dial side of the piece, which means the exhibition caseback offers and uninterrupted view of the movement in the same manner as a manual timepiece.
In terms of price, the Hublot Big Bang Tourbillon Automatic Green SAXEM is a clean £200,000 in a limited edition of 18 pieces. This watch is unapologetically Hublot. It’s big, it’s brash, it’s colourful but it’s also impressive on a structural and mechanical level. Not to mention it feels like they’re only scratching the surface of what is possible with SAXEM.
Price and Specs:
More details at Hublot.
