Bronze as a watchmaking material is becoming increasingly popular, with its distinctive vintage looks and unique patina developing over time. The Hublot “art of mix” design concept is very much at play here with a mixture of materials like 18k polished yellow gold screws providing a subtle visual contrast from the brushed bronze instance and matte black skeletonized dial. Splashes of green adorn the second hand and minute track, which help link the watch face using the green embroidered deer head decorating the strap. Inside the Big Bang Bavaria defeats Hublot’s Unico manufacture movement which offers a flyback chronograph complication and 72-hour electricity reserve.The dial of this Big Bang Bavaria is wonderfully three-dimensional, by the floating Hublot logo on the sapphire to the exposed date ring using its discreet aperture at 3 o’clock. The hour and minute hands are filled with luminescent material to the tip and partly cut away in the base, to better exhibit the vulnerable gears of Hublot’s Unico motion beneath. This combined with extensive usage of lume for the hour markers, chronograph hands, quarter-hour “pips” on the moments enroll, and hour “pips” on the hours register should result in good night readability. The contrast of gold from black also seems to create the Big Bang Bavaria one of the more legible versions that Hublot has released recently.Naturally, the Big Bang Bavaria was started with an event at Hublot’s boutique in Munich, together with LVMH Head of Watchmaking Jean-Claude Biver and company CEO Ricardo Guadalupe combined by Marcus Meindl for the tapping of the keg and picture-taking. Meindl has been a family-run tanner and boot manufacturer since 1683, and their current factory in Kirchanschöring, Bavaria, has been in operation for more than 300 years. The straps of every watch are handpicked with the family’s ancestral methods, with each individual deer hide taking 3 or 4 months to tan. Traditional sewing methods generate a three-dimensional impact for those deer head insignia, which serves to improve the textural and visual allure of the watch as a whole.
The Hublot Big Bang Unico GMT is a straightforward travel watch with no bells and whistles, despite the elaborately mechanical looking aesthetic that’s typical of the brand.
Two time zones are displayed legibly: local time is indicated by the main hands, while an arrow-tipped hand points to home time. And a day and night indicator in the centre of the dial works in conjunction with the home time.
Two pushers in the case are used to set local time, the button at two o’clock advances the local time hour hand by an hour, while that at four o’clock moves it back by the same.
The Big Bang Unico GMT is available in either titanium or carbon fibre reinforced polymer, both being 45mm in diameter, the standard size for the Big Bang.
Inside is the HUB 1251, a variant of the versatile UNICO in-house movement that Hublot uses across its collection, with various complications added, most frequently as a chronograph.
Price and availability
The Big Bang Unico GMT Titanium (ref. 471.NX.7112.RX) costs €19,600 or US$19,900.
And the Big Bang Unico GMT Carbon (ref. 471.QX.7127.RX) is priced at €22,700 or US$23,100.