Behind the Velvet Rope
Amid the high-profile events and celebrities, it’s easy to lose sight of Hublot as a bona fide watchmaker. Karishma Tulsidas charts the watchmaker’s meteoric rise as it inaugurates its second manufacturing site a mere six years after the first
hat’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Hublot? Its logo boldly emblazoned on the 2014 Fifa World Cup scoreboards in Brazil? Its name on the waistband of Floyd Mayweather’s boxing shorts during the most talked about match against Manny Pacquiao in 2015? (The brand purportedly coughed up US$1M for that honour.) Or maybe its various partnerships with living legends such as Pelé, Usain Bolt, José Mourinho, Lang Lang et al? Or do you cut through the marketese, and view the brand for what it really is: a maker of some really cool mechanical watches and a disrupter in the traditional horological landscape? Its very origins are rooted in anarchy, as Hublot was the first brand to combine a gold case with a rubber strap: founder Carlo Crocco, an avid sailor, swapped the straps of his watches for rubber as leather could not withstand the tenacious nature of the sport. Hublot was heavily criticised for this decision, but horological guru Jean-claude Biver saw its potential and bought the ailing brand in 2004, turning its fortunes around. It was a series of marketing coups, combined with an emblematic tagline (Art of Fusion) and an instantly statement-making watch that catapulted the brand to the forefront of consumer recognition. How did this luxury brand, in such a niche industry as mechanical watchmaking, become globally recognised? Its premise, from the get-go, is unique. Convention was discarded for innovation: its first signature timepiece, the Big Bang created quite the bang. It was assertive and brazen, and the young, rich and famous lapped it up in all its varied glory—in magnesium; with ceramic; with denim; with linen; in titanium; with complications; without complications; in full black… Biver recognised early on that to exist and persist in this industry, one cannot ignore