Dear friends of IWS, welcome back to our magazine! We open the doors of this new year in style with LVMH Watch Week, an event organized by the French giant that this year has landed in its own capital, Paris. In fact, from January 21 to 24, the sixth edition of this fair organized by the French multinational will be held, made exclusively for the brands belonging to the group. This year we find the participation of 9 brands, including Bulgari, Tag Heuer, Zenith, Daniel Roth and Gérald Genta, along with Louis Vuitton, Tiffany and L’Epée 1839.

Among the many new products featured, today we will discuss the new Hublot Big Bang Tourbillon Automatic Green SAXEM, a watch that shows the brand’s strong spirit of innovation with unique technical features.

Hublot: pioneer in innovation

Already last year Hublot amazed us with a truly incredible piece, the MP-10 Tourbillon Weight energy system, a watch that showed the time through the help of rollers, thus leaving aside the hands and gears.

This year 2 new watches were presented: the Big Bang Meca and the Big Bang Tourbillon Automatic Green Saxem which we will discuss today. With this model, the Nyon-based brand reconfirms its excellent ability to research and master exclusive materials, as in this case with sapphire. This is not the first time Hublot has managed to create something unique in terms of dimaterials. Recall that in the past it was the first to develop transparent carbon fiber, or Texalium, a fiberglass compound with a surface layer of aluminum, not to mention the first natural rubber (rubber) strap.

Another significant innovation dates back to 2016, when a watch with a case made entirely of transparent sapphire, the Big Bang Unico Sapphire, was unveiled for the first time. The technical difficulty in producing a transparent sapphire crystal is extremely high, as it requires precise temperature and pressure control during crystallization of the material, where the risk of error is very high.

What does SAXEM mean in the new Hublot Big Bang Tourbillon?

In the model unveiled this year, the Big Bang Tourbillon Automatic Green Saxem, Hublot decided to place a tourbillon and an automatic movement with a micro-rotor inside a 44mm case made of transparent sapphire crystal, in an emerald green tint. In this case, the green dyeing required more effort than expected, as Hublot’s researchers found several problems in its implementation, prompting them to research a new material used in the satellite field, SAXEM.

With this alloy, which turns out to be an acronym for Sapphire Aluminium oXyde and rare Earth Mineral, Hublot has succeeded in making a case that is a brilliant, intense green, much brighter and more radiant than ordinary sapphire crystal.

This new material is different from sapphire in more ways than one, and thanks to the addition of rare earths to its interior, which help improve the material’s mechanical properties, there is greater strength, durability and hardness. The structure of the material is also different; sapphire is in fact triangular (three sides), while SAXEM is cubic (four sides), allowing light to reflect and refract more intensely and shine like a precious gem.

The MHUB6035 caliber of the new Hublot Big Bang Tourbillon Green SAXEM

Inside the watch we find the in-house MHUB6035 caliber, produced entirely in-house by Hublot and visible through the sapphire crystal case back as well as the skeletonized dial. The 22-carat gold winding rotor is visible at 12 o’clock on the dial, above which we find the brand name engraved.

The entire movement and dial are made in a dark shade to highlight the emerald green of the case and to match the winding crown and rubber strap. At 6 o’clock, also on the dial, is the tourbillon, which completes one revolution in 60 seconds and gives the watch a certain symmetry by contrasting with the circular shape of the rotor just above.

Thanks to the skeletonized dial, we can see the hand finishing of components such as wheels and bridges, in which we find alternating polishing and sandblasting with soleil finishes.

Price and availability

This new Big Bang from Hublot, a combination of cutting-edge technology and excellent research, will be available in 18 pieces at Hublot boutiques and authorized retailers. The starting price for the model with a rubber strap is CHF 210,000, corresponding to approximately EUR 222,000, and then increases with the black ceramic strap and titanium deployant buckle variants.

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