Hublot

Pre-Basel 2012: Hublot

 

Believe me or not but Hublot "booth" at the Kempinski was much more impressive than the usual one at Baselworld. It was huge! Almost a full floor booked by Jean-Claude Biver and his team. So I could imagine that the objective was not to only present a single novelty.

Actually, there were 4, each one with a specific objective.

Let's start with the most complicated one of the pack.

The King Power Unico GMT has several interesting features. Its objective is to highlight the skills of the Manufacture.

First one, it uses the Unico movement but not as a chronograph, as a base for a module. We often say that Unico is the in-house chronograph movement. For me, Unico is the in-house base movement. Think about it by observing Unico chronograph movement lay-out and the column wheel located... dial side.
Second one, the GMT module was developped in-house
Third one, it tries to redesign the concept of travel watch.

I will be honest with you: I didn't like this watch, I found it too confusing.

First of all, the name is strange. It is not a "pure" GMT watch. It is a kind of worldtimer. But the concept of the worldtimer is to be easily read, to let the owner  being able to read the time on any of the 24 timezones at a glance (here: 14 cities). Of course, with time, you can be used with it. Of course, the idea of using 4 aluminium rotating disks is interesting (who said that the Urwerk Tarantula is back?). Of course, the watch has the ability to handle the "half-hour" timezones. Of course the use of Unico movement as a base improves the performance of the watch (72 hours of power reserve).

But I didn't enter the concept. I didn't get the idea behind the watch. If I understood well, the display will be simplified for Baselworld. A more than welcome improvement.

The watch being a King Power, it gets a 48mm diameter. Case is available in two cases: King Gold or Black Ceramic.

King Gold:

I find Unico lay-out quite appealing with very contemporary bridges:

Too confusing for me:

Black Ceramic:

We come back to a more classic movement with the Big Bang "Aero Bang Jet Li". Everybody understands it very easily, the objective of this watch is to help Hublot to enter Chinese market. And it is not an easy task due to the sportive design and the size of the cases.

This Aero Bang has a 44,5 mm Black Ceramic case. The originality of this watch is the way the dial is skeletonized: it is inspired by a metal trellis found in a Shaolin temple. On the case back, a Yin and Yang transfert has been put on the crystal. Sadly, the pictures don't give justice of the nice mix of black and red. The watch doesn't speak to me for cultural reasons but I would understand that it may appeal to others.

The transfert doesn't overlap the whole crysal: you can see the rotor moving.

The Aerobang Jet Li is a LE of 200 watches. A part of the sales figures will be donated to Jet Li's fundation, The One Fundation dedicated to social development in China.

Ladies were not forgotten with the Big Bang Boa Bang!

4 watches are available in LE of 250 watches each:

gold/green
gold/brown
steel/green
steel/brown

These watches feature a "jungle" / "snake" design on the dial and... the strap. Don't be shocked! These are not true snakeskin but snakeskin prints. Bezels are set with 48 stones.

8 diamonds are set on the dial:

I would like to finish the report with my fav of the selection: the King Power Maradona.

For me, thanks to use of the Argentinian jersey colours (the Albiceleste!), the watch has a kind of light feeling despite its 48mm diameter.

Do you remember the latest Manchester United LE ? So the 45 minutes chronograph is back in the context of this Maradona watch. Hopefully, there isn't any index coming from the pitch!

Maradona's signature is written on the dial:

Case is available with Black Ceramic or with 18K King Gold.

Movement is not visible, the crystal being hidden by a Maradona transfert:

The half open dial combined with the white and light blue colours make a nice result. You will notice that the pushers keep the Albiceleste atmosphere.

The King Power Maradona is LE to 500 pieces with the Ceramic case (see pictures) and to 200 pieces with the King Gold case.

Hublot also showed me a watch under embargo: so I can't tell you more, we will need to wait till Baselworld. The only thing I can tell you is that it will bring something different in the collection.

I would like to thank the Hublot team for the warm welcome at Kempinski Hotel.

Fr.Xavier


This message has been edited by foversta on 2012-01-27 14:26:36 This message has been edited by KIH on 2012-02-05 16:57:17