Art of fusion: Hublot Big Bang Unico Berluti Cold Brown

Swiss watch brand teams up with legendary Parisian shoemaker

Hublot Big Bang Unico Berluti Cold Brown
(Image credit: Hublot)

Hublot is a newcomer to watchmaking when compared to a number of other Swiss luxury brands. While many of Hublot’s peers celebrate at least one century of manufacture, 2020 marks just four decades of production for the young brand. Alas, at Hublot’s nerve centre, its manufacture in Nyon, a short drive from the heart of Geneva, 40 years of creation have sufficed to master revolutionary solutions to a centuries-old craft. Carlo Crocco established Hublot in 1980. A maverick watch entrepreneur, Crocco based his wristwatch’s simple outline on the shape of a ship’s “hublot”, the French term for “porthole”.

Crocco also pioneered what would be become known as the “Art of Fusion”, an innovative approach to materials and their combinations. Crocco, for instance, was the first to combine Malaysian rubber with precious gold sourced in South Africa. It was when Luxembourgish watchmaker Jean-Claude Biver joined Hublot in 2004 that the brand’s sales started to skyrocket.

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