Page 71 - Sharp November 2024

HUBLOT × SHARP
mance thanks to advanced components like a silicon escapement. Introduced in 2010, the Hublot Big Bang Unico has become the brand’s favourite canvas for experimentation and creativity. The current collection numbers nearly 70 variations, from the sporty Big Bang Unico Integrated Titanium model to the spectacular new Big Bang Unico Green Saxem, with a case made out of an avant-garde material similar to sapphire and coloured with rare-earth elements. Despite the incredible variation in colours, materials, and finishing techniques, the star of the collection has always been the Unico Manufacture calibre movement made in-house by Hublot. Now in its second generation, and the holder of five patents for enhanced performance, accuracy, and shock resistance, the Unico movement is distinguished by the column-wheel mechanism visible through its dial and its flyback chronograph function. “Our aim is to reinvent watchmaking complications,” says Hublot CEO Ricardo Guadalupe.
“On the Unico, having the chronograph mechanism on the dial side is a specific design feature enabling the column wheel to be visible. The movement — the soul of the watch — is an integral part of the design and the perceived value of high quality. It is unique.”
Limited to just 50 pieces, the Big Bang Unico Carbon Canada is the latest release in a tradition of Big Bang models dedicated to some of the brand’s favourite places around the world. These include tributes to Miami (with a skeletonized palm tree and a pastel gradient dial), Mexico (with a strap made from the Mexican agave plant), and Hawaii (with a dial and bezel decorated in a traditional Polynesian-inspired motif). In the same vein, for its Canadian tribute, Hublot once again avoided the low-hanging fruit of “Canadian-ness,” instead presenting a piece that lives up to the aesthetic and technical reputation of the Big Bang Unico while weaving in the refined, northern identities to make it resonate on this side of the border.
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NOVEMBER 2024 71