Bronze for a watchmaking material is becoming increasingly popular, with its distinctive vintage looks and unique patina growing over time. The Hublot “art of mix” layout concept is very much at play here with a combination of materials such as 18k polished yellow gold screws supplying a subtle visual comparison from the brushed bronze instance and matte black skeletonized dial. Splashes of green adorn the second hand and second track, which help connect the watch face with the green embroidered deer head decorating the ring. Inside the Big Bang Bavaria beats Hublot’s Unico manufacture movement that offers a flyback chronograph disadvantage and 72-hour electricity reserve.The dial of the Big Bang Bavaria is superbly three-dimensional, from the floating Hublot emblem on the sapphire into the exposed date ring using its unobtrusive aperture at 3 o’clock. Both the hour and minute hands are full of luminescent material to the tip and partially cut away in the bottom, to better display the exposed gears of Hublot’s Unico movement underneath. This coupled with extensive use of lume for the hour mark, chronograph hands, quarter-hour “pips” on the minutes register, and hour “pips” on the hours register should make for good nighttime readability. The comparison of gold against black also appears to create the Big Bang Bavaria among the more legible models that Hublot has released recently.Naturally, the Big Bang Bavaria was started with an event at Hublot’s boutique in Munich, with LVMH Head of Watchmaking Jean-Claude Biver and company CEO Ricardo Guadalupe joined by Marcus Meindl for the tapping of the keg and picture-taking. The straps of each watch are hand-crafted using the family’s ancestral methods, with every individual deer conceal taking 3 or 4 months to tan. Traditional sewing methods generate a three-dimensional effect for the deer head insignia, which functions to enhance the visual appeal of this eye as a whole.
Hublot’s new Spirit of the Big Bang is a tonneau shaped chronograph in the typical Hublot style, with lots of carbon fibre, kevlar and fusion, and but what sets it apart is the 36,000 bph Zenith El Primero movement inside.
For the new Spirit of the Big Bang chronograph, Hublot has relied on its sister company in LVMH for the movement. The HUB 4700 movement inside is actually the Zenith El Primero, running at its trademark 36,000 bph, but with skeletonised components to keep it in line with the Hublot aesthetic. With this, every watch brand of LVMH now uses the El Primero in one form or another. Measuring 51 mm by 45 mm, the Spirit of the Big Bang has a sandwich case construction like all Hublot watches. It has a black resin middle with alloy plates front and back.
Available in King Gold (a rose gold alloy) or titanium, with the option of a black ceramic bezel in both metals, the Spirit of the Big Bang is delivered on a rubber strap covered in alligator. The Spirit of the Big Bang retails for US$24,000 USD in titanium and US$47,000 King Gold. That’s a hard to swallow price tag, considering what a Zenith with the same movement costs in gold (with an annual calendar to boot) or even carbon fibre.
