Tag Archives: hublot

Roar into the Lunar New Year with These Dragon-Inspired Timepieces

 

2024 marks the return of the Year of the Dragon. Returning once every 12 years, this celestial creature is associated with prosperity and is a symbol of luck, strength and wisdom. The dragon is also an imperial icon that embodies life and immortality. In honour of this auspicious creature, LUXUO lists the exclusive festive releases and dynamic timepieces to usher in the Year of the Dragon — from dragon motifs to dragon figurines and every scale inbetween.

Vacheron Constantin

The Grisaille High Jewellery Dragon’s grisaille enamelling technique is objectively rare, and is a first for Vacheron Constantin in this shade of green. Note the 146 baguette-cut diamonds on the bezel and case of the 40 mm white gold watch, which take nothing away from the subtlety at the heart of this unique piece. Absent even a seconds indicator, it might be the most restrained watch on this list…

Ulysse Nardin

To celebrate the Lunar New Year, Ulysse Nardin combines the majestic dragon with the alluring pearl. The Ulysse Nardin Blast Tourbillon Dragon is an embodiment of in-house innovations, métiers d’art and the magic of the Year of the Dragon. This limited edition timepiece is crafted from 5N rose gold with black DLC-coated titanium sections. The two-dimensional enamel dial features an intricate red gold dragon extending across the dial towards a pearl sculpture. The case back’s “X” shape is a signature of the watch and has become a notable feature of the modern Ulysse Nardin.

Piaget

Piaget’s new Dragon & Phoenix capsule collection features 10 daring designs of exceptional watches and High Jewellery pieces – topped off with a pair of extravagantly exclusive, made-to-order high jewellery cuff watches. Each creation brims with emotion and exuberance, joyfully channelling the codes of the Maison while celebrating the house’s unparalleled watchmaking savoir-faire. In the example seen here, the dial features the fine paillonne enamel craftwork of the famed Anita Porchet, framing a engraved gold dragon.

Chopard

Chopard’s L.U.C XP Urushi Year of the Dragon is an 88-piece limited edition in ethical rose gold and boasts a continuation of the brand’s exploration of the traditional Japanese urushi craft; the dial was crafted by a Japanese Maki-e master using urushi lacquer, gold powder and mother-of-pearl inlays. The in-house L.U.C 96.17-L calibre with micro-rotor ensures that a slender profile of just 6.80 mm can be maintained. It mingles technical savoir-faire and artistic flair delivered by Chopard Manufacture.

Breguet

Classique Double Tourbillon Dragon 5345 (Special edition)

Breguet unveils two new exceptional timepieces as a tribute to the emblematic Year of the Dragon. The first is the special edition Classique Double Tourbillon Dragon 5345, which sees a hand-engraved golden dragon twirl between the watch’s twin tourbillons. The dragon is seen clutching a pearl made of mother-of-pearl in its talons. The rhodiumised gold rotating plate is hand-guillochéd with a fan motif. The gold bridge below the mainplate features an anthracite galvanic treatment and Clous de Paris hobnail motif guilloché.

Next is the Classique Dragon 7145 which features a hand-engraved rose gold appliqué dragon standing triumphantly on the dial with the watches Roman numerals, minutes track and clouds finished in a golden powder-pink hue. The manufacture calibre 502.3 beats inside a 40 mm rose gold case which is one of Breguet’s thinnest at just 2.40 mm thick.

Classique Dragon 7145 (Eight Piece numbered limited edition)

Hublot

Drawing inspiration from the traditional Chinese art of paper cutting, the Spirit of Big Bang Titanium Dragon layers its hands, wheels and H-shaped screws to form a 3D silhouette of an eastern dragon. It is a formidable expression of creativity that bridges form and function. Created in collaboration with the Chinese artist Chen Fenwan, this limited edition timepiece of 88 pieces is the perfect fusion of tradition and modernity, combining metaphors and symbols in the spirit of Hublot.

Bovet

Bovet’s artisans combined the art of sculpting miniatures with its established mastery of high horology in the Recital 26 Chapter Two Dragon. The result is a hand-engraved horological objet dárt. A domed blue quartz dial displays the local time zone’s hours and minutes in the upper part of the case. The dome located at 3 o’clock displays a second time zone specifically developed for this timepiece and patented by Bovet.

Roger Dubuis

Roger Dubuis utilised the Year of the Dragon to introduce the Excalibur Dragon Monotourbillon. The timepiece’s watchmaking innovation highlights the dance, complexity, artistry, and symbolism of the festive season all in one. For the sculpture of the dragon, the watchmakers have used 27 individual pieces of brass – each embellished with black lacquer on the sides and a pink gold treatment on the polished top surface. The pieces are then set on 25 different levels, producing a mutli-dimensional vision that is full of volume and vitality, thus enriching the skeletonised movement.

IWC Schaffhausen

IWC Schaffhausen welcomes the Lunar New Year with a special edition release of the Portugieser Chronograph. This timepiece features a 41 mm stainless steel case, a burgundy dial and contrasting gold-plated hands and appliques. Limited to 1,000 pieces, this watch features its rotor in the form of a majestic dragon, visible through the sapphire crystal case back. The watch is powered by the manufacture 69355 calibre.

Bell & Ross

Envoking tattoo artistry, the BR 05 Artline Dragon watch takes on this bold personality, with its own exclusive laser engraving. By adopting this graphic code, the timepiece visually plays on light and shadow through the relative fineness and thickness of each stroke honing in on the precision of line work that is crucial to “transcending the realm of drawing to that of a metal tattoo”. On the BR 05 Artline Dragon’s dial and integrated bracelet, the decorative motif is finely engraved.

Jaeger-LeCoultre

Jaeger-LeCoultre adds a new chapter to this story of craftsmanship and artistry with the Reverso Tribute Enamel ‘Dragon’. The new timepiece pays tribute to the Year of the Dragon, and to the talents of the master enamellers and engravers in the Métiers Rares atelier of the Manufacture Jaeger-LeCoultre. Created to celebrate the Zodiac Year and made only to order, the Reverso Tribute Enamel ‘Dragon’ is testament to La Grande Maison’s vision of culture and creativity, where the artistic crafts merge with the technical expertise of the watchmakers.

Blancpain

In 2012, Blancpain achieved a world-first when it debuted its Villeret Traditional Chinese Calendar wristwatch that spanned East-West with its combination of a complex Chinese calendar and a Gregorian date and moonphase. This year, the Manufacture enters its second 12-year cycle with the introduction of a new limited edition of this grand complication featuring a dragon engraved on the red gold winding rotor in honor of the symbol of the new lunar year. This special limited edition for the first time is executed in red gold with a green enamel dial against a frosted background; the dragon is flanked by a red ruby and a Chinese character engraving of the words “dragon” and “wood”, the element of 2024.

Franck Muller

Franck Muller’s release of special edition timepieces comes every Lunar New Year to mark the procession of animals in the Chinese zodiac. Honouring the mythical dragon, the new Vanguard Dragon Slim Skeleton Limited Edition bears a customised rotor that has been engraved with a dragon, which appears to coil around and protect the timepieces’s movement like a “mystical guardian”. The Vanguard Dragon Slim Skeleton Rouge and Vert are accented in red and green respectively, with the pops of color coming from its tinted sapphire caseback – the special bright hues reflected in said caseback mirror that of the dial. Only 10 pieces will be available of each reference, including the Colour Dreams version (which is distinguished by a transparent caseback) exclusively at Franck Muller boutiques in the Asia Pacific region.

Parmigiani Fleurier

Maison Parmigiani celebrates the Year of the Wood Dragon with a magnificent restoration of a masterpiece from its Métiers d’Art collection, the “Tempus Fugit”. Inspired by the legend of the Dragon and the Pearl of Knowledge, the piece incorporates powerful symbols anchored deep in traditional Chinese culture. This piece is a reference to Parmigiani Fleurier’s vast experience in the restoration of antique clocks and its fascination with kinetic art.

L’Epée

The movement “Swiss Made Caliber 1853” was created entirely by L’Epée 1839, has 124 parts meticulously assembled by the L’Epée 1839’s master watchmakers. Two dragons “protect” on either side of the most precious part of a kinetic object — the gearing mechanism. The dragons with golden or palladium scale adopt mirrored postures, their serpentine body coils protectively around the horological craftmanship.

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Hublot Congratulates Spain For Winning The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – AUGUST 20: Spain players lift the trophy and celebrate during the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023 Final match between Spain and England at Stadium Australia on August 20, 2023 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Marc Atkins/Getty Images,)

Hublot has long proclaimed that they LOVE FOOTBALL! And this extends not only to the world of men’s football but the women’s categories as well. This fact is further evidenced as Hublot was the official timekeeper for the recently concluded FIFA Women’s World Cup, and their quick announcement of congratulations to the country who lifted the championship trophy – Spain

For the ninth edition of this global competition, Hublot provided all 107 match officials, 94 of whom were women with a special edition Hublot Big Bang e. This high-powered luxury smartwatch fuses the brand’s flagship design using cutting-edge material, with the latest in wearable technology. In addition to all smartwatch functions, the special edition watch for the match officials was also equipped with unique functions to aid them including monitoring yellow cards and added time at the end of the game.

As an added cherry on top of this incredible partnership, Hublot had a number of Ambassadors and Friends of the Brand taking part in this prestigious competition. This includes: from the Spanish team, and double Ballon d’Or winner, Alexia Putellas; Ada Hegerberg of Norway; and Alex Morgan from the USA.

Alexia Putellas, played as a midfielder for the Spanish national team during the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

“What a tournament! On behalf of everyone at Hublot, I would like to extend my congratulations to Spain and to our friend Alexia Putellas for your amazing victory, and to our partner FIFA for hosting a fantastic tournament. You inspired the world! For the past month, it has been a source of enormous pride to serve as the FIFA Women’s World Cup2023 TM Official Timekeeper and to see the Big Bang e on the wrists of match officials and the Big Bang-shaped fourth official board. Hublot is the first Swiss watch company in football and it is a great joy to continue our support of the beautiful game around the world, and in particular to see the women’s game grow and grow. We’re with you every second of the way. Hublot loves football!” Comments Ricardo Guadalupe, CEO of Hublot.

Tissot

The Timeless Appeal Of Steel Watches

Image: Tissot

Fine watchmaking has plenty of complicated and difficult to understand concepts. By far the toughest to explain is the enduring appeal and value of watches in steel, with some examples commanding the highest value in all of watchmaking. Even worse are the core collection watches that achieve eye-watering prices by being cased in humble steel. This is the reason steel is sometimes called unobtainium in watchmaking circles, being that it is potentially more elusive than even the same watch in platinum.

Part of the reason for the apparently timeless appeal of steel can be found in the key watches of the 1970s, namely the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak and the Patek Philippe Nautilus. To this, one might very reasonably add the Vacheron Constantin Overseas, the Royal Oak Offshore, the Aquanaut and the Girard-Perregaux Laureato, amongst others, as well as the entire catalogue of all non-precious metal Richard Mille watches. These types of watches are classed together in the luxury sports watch category, and Richard Mille in particular has legitimised extraordinary price points for ultra-lightweight watches.

In a totally different vein, Grand Seiko brought fine finishing to the sports watch category, and has thus given tangible form to what prestige sports watches could look like. Not for nothing, Grand Seiko has also brought timekeeping innovation to the table, with Spring Drive being the most exciting chronometric achievement (in series production no less) in the last 20 years. Such exercises in chronometric excellence, combine with Richard Mille’s excessively engineered options, to cite just the entire automatic winding system, to provide a showcase of what fine watchmaking can bring to the table, in terms of robustness.

Image: Tissot

Richard Mille, Hublot, Roger Dubuis, Panerai and Audemars Piguet have also taken luxury watchmaking into never-before-explored realms of high-tech material science. The amazing growth in value — even at the level of detail — of these sorts of watches represents a triumph of marketing. Not necessarily the sort of marketing that creates desire, but the sort that emphasises the real need for these innovative moves.

This is not to say that the non-precious metal watches are a gimmick — Rolex has yet to endorse even titanium but that probably has more to do with its internal logic than any distaste or distrust of contemporary alloys and composites. The proof for this lies, chiefly, in the presence of ceramic, titanium and bronze cases in the Tudor assortment. Watch collectors have been eagerly awaiting the introduction of titanium cases in the Rolex range, and that would indeed have a transformative effect on the overall watch trade. The key to this lies in which price segment such watches would find themselves.

Currently, watches cased in titanium are typically more expensive than steel, and Rolex would likely only use titanium if it could get the same sort of high sheen that stainless steel can deliver. Such innovation in finishing (or in material science) would require a higher price point, thus playing into the hands of the so-called premiumisation forces currently dominating the market.

Here, the example of Audemars Piguet is most useful because CEO Francois Henry Benahmias has demonstrated the effectiveness of banking on selling fewer watches at ever higher price points. By relentlessly applying this strategy, Audemars Piguet has raised its revenues to within striking distance of Patek Philippe, while producing fewer watches. Intriguingly, Audemars Piguet, unlike Patek Philippe and Rolex, is firmly on the titanium path, and has actually made a Royal Oak reference in titanium, but that was for Only Watch. Nevertheless, Audemars Piguet could have changed things up in the Royal Oak game by introducing titanium for the standard 16202 model, but it opted not to. It could also do the same with ceramic, as it already has in complication territory, while also charging a premium price because of the difficulty in achieving the desired finishing.

Image: Audemars Piquet

Given how the Audemars Piguet numbers look, it is only natural that rivals are keenly studying the situation with regards to premiumisation. The playbook would be simple — establish a popular steel model, and then instead of increasing production of that model, introduce precious metal variants, and focus on selling ever greater numbers of those. There will be questions about where the best margins lie, but this may vary from brand to brand. Tissot illustrates an accelerated version of the premiumisation story with its insanely popular PRX model. It began with a quartz model, followed up with an automatic, and now has a steel and gold version. We have no doubt that all versions of the PRX are successful to some degree, because the aforementioned playbook works like a charm.

Watchfinder and other specialists are saying that gold is the next go-to material, and perhaps Patek Philippe will endorse this with exclusively gold versions of the Nautilus, as it did with Ref. 3711. It certainly feels logical to shift the collecting conversation away from steel, at least for awhile. Gold changes the value proposition considerably, and raises the asking price at retail accordingly. This becomes more important, and ever more pressing, as prices on the secondary market for steel watches approach those of the gold versions — they already exceed them in some cases.

Image: Patek Philippe

To close this segment on materials off, we return to Rolex. The brand is doing a masterclass in convincing people to move up the value chain, so to speak, and get precious metal models if steel is simply out of reach. Consider the example of the Rolex Cellini, which is never spoken of as a must-have model, and also that of the Datejust, for broader context. In the first case, you will be hard-pressed to even find a Cellini watch to try on, much less to buy immediately. Here too, you will have to register your interest and wait.

In the second case, we can report that you can still see and try on Datejust models, but you will also be unable to buy any immediately. The Cellini is only available in gold, and a significant proportion of the Datejust range is also only available in precious metals. Clearly, demand for Rolex watches is going far beyond the professional steel sports watch category, but let us look at what a typical watch buying journey might look like for just this one brand.

You would begin, like as not, with the Oyster Perpetual — it might be your first serious watch. After a few years, you might decide that something more substantial might be called for, and now you look to the Oyster Perpetual Submariner with date. From here, you might also consider a Rolesor version of the same, or perhaps even the full gold model. If your wrist could handle it, you might even opt for the Sea-Dweller. From there, you could go in a lot of directions, but you will now have charted a rather specific course in watch collecting.

So, the progression here would be from a simple time-only collection, exclusively in steel, to another collection that also offers gold and half gold options. Well, we say that this is typical but you will find it very difficult indeed to execute this course at this time. It might be that you will have to go straight for that Rolesor Submariner… Once again, if there is any watch you want from Rolex, and fortune favours you, do not hesitate.

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