BIG BANG MECA-10 STREET ART: A NEW FUSION OF URBAN ART AND THE ART OF WATCHMAKING

Hublot is challenging the rules of watchmaking through these four series of just 10 pieces. Using a stencil and airbrush on a concrete case, the Manufacture has created its first-ever urban street art watch mural. This fusion of masterful Haute Horlogerie and artistic talents relies on outstanding.

The ‘90s: In the US, like sculptures and paintings, “tagging” became a recognised art form, and was renamed “graffiti”. "Street artists" took over spaces. Turned away from art museums, they claimed city centres and industrial wasteland as their own. While they scared off some more conventional collectors, a few gallery owners offered them walls and canvases to present their work. Hence, a new art movement was born.

The 2000s: A Swiss luxury watchmaking brand emerged. Leaving behind the opulent workshops of Geneva's city centre, it settled in Nyon, built its high-tech Manufacture, scaled to its needs, and set about reshaping the watchmaking landscape by focusing on three elements. Each watch design needed to be innovative, original, and different. Hublot was born.

These two soaring comets were destined to collide... and sure to create some noise. The result is the Big Bang Meca-10 Street Art. This street-art-inspired timepiece, offered in four very limited editions of just 10 watches per model, is available exclusively in North America. Its conception required an extraordinary R&D process that only Hublot could achieve.

They feature the Meca-10 movement. First introduced in 2016, this 100% Manufacture calibre turns all the fundamentals of watchmaking upside down. By focusing on the mechanics and construction which you might have imagined as a child, Hublot has created an entirely unique and playful movement. 223 parts, perforated, straight and curved metal blades, toothed crowns, racks, plates, pinions, and a cogwheel system. This astonishing mechanism, visible from the side through the transparent composite casing, is sure to make you yearn for a workbench to endlessly take it apart and reassemble it. Best of all, the case is truly inspired by street art as the base is made of concrete!

This new Big Bang case is made of a concrete composite. The intention was to give the case the texture and rough edges of a real wall, to convey the type graffiti artists use for their art. The Big Bang Meca-10 Street Art case is not perfect, not polished, and certainly not precious, but it is as unique and distinctive as it is durable. Hublot has added a bio-based epoxy resin to the composite to ensure it is completely solid, and enhanced it with graphene. This carbon-based material strengthens the composite by a further 15% to 20%. Ultimately, this triple blend of concrete, resin and graphene mimics the rough, tough character and colour of large urban areas. But what might have been seen as a major achievement to some was merely a starting point for Hublot.

The raw talent of the street artist Saiff Vasarhelyi was truly unleashed through this series of four composite concrete cases. But it doesn’t stop there. The straps, along with the Meca-10 movement and dial, make up a complete, uncompromising creation, with a wild splash of colour that has been skilfully applied, down to the finest detail. To achieve this result, the Hublot design team created motifs tailored specifically to its components to prevent paint from interfering with the watch’s mechanism.

The production of the 4 models involved numerous intricate and precise trials. To mirror the techniques employed by a street artist working on urban murals, the process utilized fine stencils and accurate airbrushes to replicate the design precisely to the scale of the watch.

Ultimately, the colourful and fluorescent combination (under UV lights) offer to this unique collection an explosion of colours, day and night.

Each piece is presented in the iconic Hublot wooden case which has also been embellished with the same motifs as the watch.