This is a review with a difference. Why? Because it isn’t the typical watch you wear on the wrist, Hublot’s unique Arsham Droplet is a pocket watch, desk clock and wearable jewellery all in one!
What We Love
- The totally unique shape
- It’s Hublot material science at its best!
- Its versatility as a three-in-one-piece
What We Don’t
- You can’t wear it on your wrist
- It is not as practical in this day and age
- The crystal shape can distort the dial in places
Overall Score: 8.75 / 10
- Value for Money: 8.5/10
- Wearability/Versatility: 8/10
- Design: 9.5/10
- Build Quality: 9/10
The Arsham Droplet is typically Hublot, even though it doesn’t look like anything else Hublot has produced. Ever. That statement sounds like an oxymoron a little, but if you know Hublot, then you’ll know that they pride themselves on creating pieces that are like no other watch brands out there. Just take a look at their watch collaborations. Orlinski, Sang Bleu, and Murakami to name a few. Or their Manufacture Pieces, like the MP-05 LaFerrari, the MP-10 Tourbillon Weight Energy System, or MP-13 Tourbillon Bi-Axis Retrograde. These are all Hublot, and while all very different, all have that distinct Hublot style, embedded with Hublot DNA at their core.
One of the main reasons these are all unique is Hublot gives create reign to their designers and collaborators, to infuse as much of them into the pieces as Hublot. To me, I love this. Rather than sticking a logo on an already existing watch with a new colour dial, Hublot makes its pieces in partnership with those people who work with the brand. Take the latest Big Bang Unico x Djokovic. Yes, it looks like a Big Bang Unico, but it is made with Novak Djokovic in mind, and also in collaboration with him, using his old requests and shirts and making the watch ultra-light and shock-resistant, designed to be worn whilst playing.
Another great example is the long-running partnership Hublot has with Takashi Murakami. What watch would better embody the famous Japanese artist than a flower, the shape and design Takashi Murakami is famous for and incorporates into his art? So a flower-shaped watch it is! So it would come as no surprise that when Hublot teamed up with Daniel Arsham, the multi-disciplined visual artist, this collaboration would be something not seen before. And it was!
First Impressions
This was one of those releases that as much as the images online showcased it, you had to see it in person to understand it and see how it actually looked and felt in the hand. It may have taken 6 months to get our hands on it, but it did not disappoint when we did. Firstly, it isn’t a wristwatch. So this alone puts it into the ‘intriguing’ basket. Secondly, Hublot and Daniel Arsham have come up with a unique drop-shaped, full sapphire watch, which is also a three-in-one piece. While it may sound contradictory, this fact makes it both versatile and usable, but also not at the same time. Again, this is Hublot through and through – a contradiction in terms but somehow, it works.
I’ll say this at the start – pictures don’t really do this justice, and photographing it with the way the sapphire curves and plays with the light isn’t easy, but that is not what is important. It’s how it feels in the hand and looks to the eye. The first time in the hand, you get the appeal instantly as it’s so different, and while you’re not 100% sure what to make of it, you just know you like it.
The Design
The Arsham Droplet is just that, a droplet. When coming up with the design, contemporary artist Daniel Arsham took his inspiration from the way water flows and forms drops in nature. You can see this in the strange asymmetrical-shaped case, which is made from sapphire crystal. It isn’t your typically shaped drop, but more a strange form of fluidity, like the way liquid metal starts to form and pull together when separated. What is instantly noticeable is the clarity of the sapphire, something Hublot excels at. It is as if the watch was dipped into a super clear liquid, and it solidified instantly forming the shape with no impurities or ripples whatsoever. What is more remarkable here is this isn’t one piece of sapphire either, it is two pieces, moulded and put together around an inner skeleton.
Inside the watch is a full titanium skeleton, which you can see in the image above clearly. This skeleton forms the base of the watch and holds all the vital organs in place. The titanium has been shaped with a range of different-sized circles and ovals, which together give the watch structure, but also enhance its visual aspect, assisting in bringing the droplet theme to life even more.
RELATED READING: In Person With Ricardo Guadalupe, Former CEO & Honourary President Of Hublot
Each half of the Arsham Droplet is crafted by the engineers at Hublot’s Nyon manufacture, and placed perfectly on either side of the inner skeleton and movement to create the overall shape. Sapphire is one of the hardest substances to work with, and somehow, Hublot has perfected it. Around the outside is a thin band of titanium, with a light “Arsham Green” rubber inset to assist when holding the watch. The last thing you want is this to slip through the fingers and become a very expensive insurance claim! The ‘H’ styled Hublot screws hold all this in place.
The dial is fully skeletonised to show off the Meca-10 movement. The hour markers with Super-LumiNova are done in Arsham Green varnish and are attached to the colour-matched outer track below the rehaut. At the top of this sits the Arsham logo, and the hands along with the small seconds at 9 o’clock are also done the same semi-matte varnished green. This gives off a fresh colourful vibe, and if this was a wristwatch, I’d be saying here that it just may be a great summer watch.
The watch has Hublot’s one-click system, which makes it easy to change the way you use the watch. The chains for the pocket watch or pendant can be easily interchanged with the click of a button, or with the desk clock mount, the watch can be attached to this. This fact means that you can have the Arsham Droplet on you all day, and when you get home, unclip it and place it in the dock for the table clock.
The chains for the pocket watch and the pendant are also made from full titanium with a combination of polished and microblasted areas. This keeps the weight of the Arsham Droplet down, as the piece itself has weight to it thanks to the full sapphire crystal construction, so the last thing you want when wearing it around the neck as a pendant is a full steel chain to add more weight.
How It Wears (no, wait) Usability & Versatility
This is the part where I usually talk about how the watch wears. The comfort on the wrist, the way the strap feels, how the watch sits on the wrist, the size in comparison to the wearer etc. But, this isn’t a wristwatch, so most of that is a little redundant. So instead, I’ll talk about how it’s used and its functionality, as this piece has been designed for those who want a statement piece of sorts, and one that is totally different from the crowd and used in a (now in modern-day) unconventional way.
Over 100 years ago, pocket watches were the norm. To tell the time, a gentleman would pull out his pocket watch from his fob pocket, which was attached to a chain, flip open the watch, glance at the time and then close it and put it securely back in. Nowadays, we have watches on our wrists, and replacing the pocket watch’s functionality is a phone. At least for most people anyway. So when you see a brand do something left of centre, like the Arsham Droplet, you know it will be appealing to a certain type of person. As we have stated many times before, Hublot is not a brand for everyone, and with the Arhsam Droplet, this is very much the case. There are also only 99 pieces, so by virtue, this is a piece for only 99 people in the world.
As I alluded to earlier in the article, the Arsham Droplet has been designed in a certain way, mimicking the flow of liquid in nature, but also to conform to the contours of the hand. It isn’t something you think about much until you hold the Arsham Droplet. The green rubber inset around the edge makes it non-slip, important when taking it out of the pocket to check the time, and the curvature of the piece itself means that no matter if you are left or right-handed, it fits. While it is larger than most wristwatches, coming in at 73.2mm in length x 52.6 mm wide x 22.5 mm thick, by our normal standards this would be a giant watch. But, it isn’t a wristwatch, so all that matters is this is easy to read, easy to hold, and will fit in a pocket, which it does!
My one small criticism of this piece is the way the crystal shape distors the light, especially around the lower dial. This in on way impedes reading the time, but it does make the lower part of the dial around the power reserve indicator and balance look slightly off. Depening on the angle you view it from, it will either look right, or like those fun-house mirrors. In person, as you can move the watch around in your hand, this becomes less of a problem when compared to still images, but depending no how you look at it, (no pun intended) you’ll either love the quirkiness of it, or you wont.
Now I’m not one for modelling a pendant, it’s not quite my style nor would I do this piece justice as I’m not super fashionable, but Daniel Arsham is, so I’ll show how he wears the piece, as it should be worn. I will say this though, if you’re not used to wearing heavier jewellery around the neck, this piece may not be for you as I mentioned earlier, there is a little bit of weight to the watch. I feel you would only wear it this way sparingly, as a statement piece of artistic jewellery to an event. I’ve been to plenty of events over the years with celebrities, influencers, and those who are into fashion and are at the pointy end of fashion who I can see wearing this easily. But for me, I’d rather have this as a pocket watch, and use it to tell a story, a conversation starter that I can pull out and show people.
The third way of using this piece is as the desk clock. Hublot has come up with an ingenious way of doing this, by detaching the Droplet from the chain and docking it into the clock via the One-Click system. However, the watch itself isn’t large enough to be used as a proper clock, so the mount and display itself is a large magnifying glass, designed with a similar style to the Arsham Droplet itself.
With a titanium base, and two “bubbles” one acting as the crystal clear magnifying glass to show the time, the other in a translucent green to match the Arsham Green on the watch, the clock set up is something unique, and again, a statement piece for the home or office. I’ve always been fascinated by unique and interesting desk clocks, and I would love to have a carefully selected desk clock in my house one day. That is as soon as my kids are a little older and my fear of them taking it and playing with it, thus ending in tragedy subsides. that aside, I could quite easily see the Arsham Droplet as a clock in my house, taking pride of place in the living area for all to see. For me, this is how it would spend most of its time, but it would be undocked occasionally and shown off at events, as per my previous comments about wearing it.
The Movement
The movement is on full display with the Arsham Droplet, which is kind of the point here being a sapphire watch. For this, Hublot has chosen the in-house designed and manufactured HUB1201 Meca-10 movement to power the watch. To me, this makes complete sense as you are not wearing it on your wrist, so you need a manual wind movement, and when it comes to Hublot, there is no better manual winding movement than the Meca-10. You can power it up, and then not have to worry about it for a full 10 days. While it would be great to see more of the movement through the reverse side of the Arsham Droplet, there is Daniel Arsham’s logo on the back in the Arsham Green and black, so this does obscure it somewhat. Personally I would have loved to have seen the Meca-10 on full display with the three bridges being visible – a hallmark of the Meca-10 movement which resembles Meccano sets.
For those that are not aware of how the Meca-10 movement was developed, or why, you can read about it in a lot more detail in our Watch Education Article on the Movements Of Hublot. For those who want the abridged version, then the inspiration for Hublot to create the Meca-10 began when the designers looked back into their childhood days (remember those?) when imagination was limitless. As a homage to all those who spent hours designing and building with Meccano, a more sophisticated version of Lego Technic that includes plates, wheels, and gears, Hublot created the Meca-10 range. So groundbreaking at the time, the Meca-10 won the Red Dot Award back in 2017 for innovation, so it doesn’t stand as a testament to Hublot’s movement capabilities.
RELATED READING: Hands-On With The Hublot Big Bang Meca-10 Ceramic Blue
The HUB1201 Meca-10 is a hand-wound movement, with a full 10-day, or 240-hour power reserve stemming from two barrels inside the movement, both delivering 5 days’ worth of power to the watch. Unlike most watches, those with the Meca-10 are best viewed from the front, as this is where it is on full show. The genius of the Meca-10 is the way it both distributes the power, but more so, the way it lets the user know how much power it has left. This is shown on the two discs at the front, with the smaller wheel at 6 o’clock telling you how many days power if left, then on the larger disc at 3 o’clock, the oval-shaped window shows starts to go white when the power reserve is down to 48 hours, a little like your car when almost empty.
The other unique factor with the Meca-10 is the way it drives the power reserve indicators. The top barrel in the movement drives the rack and pinion mechanism, which can be seen just behind the Hublot logo at 12 o’clock, this in turn drives the power reserve indicator at 3 o’clock. Another throwback to Meccano sets and the way the gears and mechanisms all come together to make the models work.
Final Thoughts
The Arsham Droplet is unique. It is quirky and serious at the same time, embodying everything that Hublot does best – meticulously crafted and shaped sapphire, an award winning in-house movement, and collaborating with an artist to design and develop a piece that other wont, or can’t! In addition to this, they have gone outside the box to develop a watch that is to be worn and admired, but not on the wrist.
This last statement is the reason why I said at the start, this piece is a little bit of a contradiction in the fact that it is versatile in it’s own nature, but at the same time it is not. However, this is not a bad thing at all, it’s just how you approach a watch like the Arsham Droplet. If you fully appreciate what Hublot and Daniel Arsham have come up with, then you’ll love it. If you fail to see the concept, then you’ll not, but then this is not a pice that is for you, or for everyone.
The price point will also make most of us think twice about it – at A$132,000 it’s definitely a piece for those who have means, and by virtue of the watch itself, as well as the price, it will be a piece for collectors who are looking for something new that is nothing like they have in their current collection. If I had the coin for this, would it be on my radar? Short answer – Yes, as it would look great in my house on display for me to admire, and for anyone who came over, a great talking point. I also fully appreciate how this piece is made, and what it represents, not just from a timekeeping perspective, but as a piece of functional and wearable art. Not to mention bringing it out at watch get togethers would be fun and something very different from the stock standard pieces you always see.
Reference: 916.NX.5202.NK – MP-16, limited to 99 pieces
Specification:
- Dimensions: 73.2mm in length x 52.6 mm wide x 22.5 mm thick
- Case Material: Polished Sapphire with anti-reflective coating, inner titanium skeleton with outer band made from titanium and rubber
- Dial: Skeleton dial in grey PVD with matte varnish Arsham Green hands, hour makers and small seconds. 10-day power reserve and low power indicator at 3 and 6 o’clock
- Movement: HUB1201 Manufacture Manual-winding Skeleton Power Reserve Movement. Beating at 21,600 VpH / 3Hz and pivoting on 24 Jewels
- Case-Back: Microblasted M3 Titanium Skeleton, engraved and printed Arsham Green logo
- Water resistance: 30 metres / 3ATM
- Power reserve: 10 Days / 240 hours
- Necklace: Full Titanium with Polished Links / Shiny Microblasted Clasp and One-click Tip
- Pocket Chain: Full Titanium with Polished Links / Shiny Microblasted Carabiner and One-click Tip
- Table Stand: Microblasted Titanium / Polished Green Arsham Colour Sphere and Mineral Magnifying Glass
