Matt Clymo 
Hublot continues to push the boundaries with their latest creation in an industry-first: a multi-coloured ceramic Big Bang!
Ceramic is a wonderful material. It’s lighter than steel, incredibly tough and impervious to scratches, can be matte or polished to a mirror shine and depending on your level of expertise in it, can be blended with alloys to create hybrid materials or, adding pigments to it can have a range of colours. The caveat however in that last part is the word “expertise”. Yes, lots of brands dabble in ceramic, but none have mastered it more than Hublot, which is not something I say lightly or as a throw-away comment. I’ve been lucky to experience and learn how ceramic is made, how it’s fused with metals and how hard it is to create coloured ceramic outside the basic black, white and darker colours. There is a reason why most ceramic watches are not light and vibrant, primarily because it is very hard to achieve these types of colours consistently and at scale. So when Hublot constantly comes up with new colours, like Yellow Magic, Sky Blue, and vibrant oranges and reds, they are doing something unique and perfecting a chemical process very few others will, or can. And now it seems, Hublot has gone a step further by creating the very first multi-coloured ceramic!
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Big Bang, and as we saw last month for LVMH Watch Week, Hublot looks to be going all out for it, starting the year off by giving the Big Bang Meca-10 an overhaul, and now, showcasing the next evolution of their ceramic mastery, which my gut tells me is the start of a new era of ceramic design for the Nyon brand.
Dubbed “Magic Ceramic” Hublot has managed to perfect a process that infuses two colours into the ceramic to create a unique and random bubble pattern. Now, don’t get confused with a two-coloured ceramic bezel like you find on GMT watches as this is essentially just two colours created separately on the bezel, like painting two colours on a wall next to each other. Ok, I’m being overly simplistic with my analogy here, but you get the point I’m making. With Magic Ceramic, Hublot has been able to seamlessly fuse an intense blue, which they have called “Twilight Blue” into the dark grey ceramic, creating a bubble effect that is both eye-catching and unique, and like with most things Hublot does, bucks the conventional trends.
While Hublot doesn’t go into detail about the process, unsurprisingly as it still has a patent pending, it has taken the material sciences team over 4 years of research and development to have achieved this. Director of R&D for Hublot, Mathias Buffet comments:
“After more than four years of research, we have mastered the art of combining vivid, patented colors—a true technical feat. Thanks to the creativity and talent of our young engineers taking the lead, Hublot’s scientific approach and innovating spirit will continue to astonish.”
Hublot has chosen to present their new Magic Ceramic in the form of the Big Bang 42mm (previously the Big Bang Unico) with the HUB1280 Flyback Chronograph movement. Developed entirely in-house, the HUB1280 is a testament to Hublot’s ingenuity and desire to create great movements, with the goal of enhancing their manufacturing capabilities over the next few years and developing more movements in-house across more of their model lines. Not only this, they are putting more focus on accuracy and reliability, with the HUB1280 currently being tested in five positions, with the goal to increase this to COSC in the near future. The Calibre HUB1280 has a 72-hour power reserve, beats at 4Hz / 28,800 VpH and consists of 354 components.
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Adding to the aesthetic of the watch, the Big Bang Magic Ceramic’s case is a combination of micro-blasted and polished black ceramic, including the caseback. This gives the Twilight Blue colour the chance to stand out on the black background of the watch, essentially Hublot saying, “Look what we can do!” Being a Big Bang, the watch is equipped with a black rubber strap and push button clasp which is easily exchanged via Hublot’s “One-Click” system. Having dealt with many watches that have a quick change system in place, I can say that Hublot’s is one of the quickest and easiest to use out there.
In celebration of the Big Bang’s 20th birthday, the new Big Bang Magic Ceramic is limited to just 20 pieces worldwide, which like many other limited editions, will be snapped up by collectors and fans of the brand.
Initial Thoughts
I’ve not seen this piece in person (yet), but my first thoughts when seeing the press shots were it’s a cool funky colour combination that some will either love or hate. Either way, it is very different to any other watch on the market currently – I can’t think of another watch with blue dots on the bezel, can you? But looks are subjective, so this aside, the fact that Hublot has been able to tinker yet again with ceramic and come up with a truly multi-coloured ceramic and persisted with getting it right for 4 years is kind of cool in my mind and something Hublot needs to get more credit for. This type of R&D is expensive and time-consuming, and while some people will look at this and see a blue polka dot bezel, those who understand the complexities will fully appreciate what this innovation actually means.
While some critics say that Hublot does too many limited editions, I would say this: each limited edition is different and unique, and those limited edition pieces are usually designed and made with hard-to-work-with or unique materials (like the Novak Djokovic Big Bang made from his shirts and racquets, which there are only so many of), and finally, people love a limited edition and it works well, so what is wrong with that?
Reference: 441.CIB.1171.RX
Specifications:
- Dimensions: 42mm and 14.5mm thick
- Case: Micro-blasted and polished black Ceramic
- Dial: Matte black open-worked dial with Super-LumiNova filled hands and indices
- Movement: HUB1280 UNICO Manufacture Self-winding Chronograph Flyback Movement with Column Wheel
- Power reserve: 72 hrs
- Water resistance: 10 bar (100 meters)
- Crystal: Sapphire with Anti-reflective coating with faceted edges
- Case back: Black Ceramic with Sapphire caseback
- Strap: Black Structured Lined Rubber Strap with Black Ceramic and Black-plated Titanium Deployant Buckle Clasp
