NOW, THE SOFTWARE
With the hardware in place in the form of the Big Bang and the Classic Fusion, Hublot was still missing a piece in the puzzle: its own in-house movement. In 2009, it launched its proprietary Unico calibre, an integrated flyback chronograph movement that would come to equip its Big Bang and King Power collections. The Unico calibre is manufactured in its entirety at the Hublot premises. The watchmaker makes most components in-house, except for the mainspring and the hairspring. After the components are engineered by the high-tech machines mentioned earlier, they are transported to another workshop where another specialised device pre-assembles these components. This is a new technology that the brand has only been using for a year, and is used for the simpler processes of fitting the bridges and rubies onto the main plate. The assembly is then completed by hand. While the Unico manufacturing process is part hand- and part machine-made, the high complication watches are all handcrafted. The brand set up its own haute horlogerie department when it welcomed the nowdefunct BNB Concept into its fold. Previously helmed by Mathias Buttet, BNB started as a supplier of high complication movements, but could not sustain its business when the 2008 crisis hit. Biver bought over the company, hitting two birds with one stone. Today,