Hublot melds forward-thinking watchmaking with age-old tradition and it’s state of the art Swiss manufacturing.
Unlike most venerable Swiss watch brands, which tout the importance of history and tradition, Hublot is a modern upstart, founded in 1980. LVMH acquired the brand in 2004 and installed industry turnaround artist Jean-Claude Biver at its helm. Now president of the LVMH Watch Division and chairman of Hublot, Biver embraced Hublot’s contemporary essence and amped it up with big, bold designs using avant-garde materials at stratospheric prices.
Hublot’s headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, opened in 2009. Then, in order to keep pace with increasing demand and maintain the vertical growth of its production, just six years later it was expanded with a second building across nearby railroad tracks, doubling its production capacity. A sleek Formula One style bridge that arches over the tracks links the H1 and H2 buildings.
Like most premium brands, Hublot leverages cutting-edge technology, including automated electro-spark and CNC milling machines for producing componentry, while centuries-old crafts like finishing and assembly are still performed the old-fashioned way, by hand.
‘Fusion is life. It’s a philosophy. A concept so simple that it is child’s play. Therein lies the key to success: innovation which reveals this self-evident premise. From time immemorial, the greatest achievements have grown out of the simplest ideas.’ Jean-Claude Biver
Hublot creates brand new codes through the fusion of materials, science and style which is now a distinctive character trait, with ‘The Art of Fusion’ forming the brand’s very DNA. Hublot’s story began with this motto, which now guides all its actions, its innovations, its developments, and its partnerships. Embodying this subtle connection between a past ingrained with secular traditions, and a future nourished by visionary ideas, always avant-garde, always researching new materials, it blends styles and materials with ease. Its partners and ambassadors share its convictions. Members of a family united by a common DNA.
By combining elements from nature, which are never found in their native state, Hublot has reproduced the Big Bang, the moment at which everything came into existence. A modern-day alchemist blending the past and the future, tradition and innovation.
The use of metals in their original form and the first ore reductions date back to prehistoric times. Metals and alloys were then developed with the industrial revolution so that, nowadays, we have a plethora of forms, compositions and applications which is seemingly limitless. It is in this universe made of materials, minerals, metals, ceramics, polymers, composite materials and alloys, that Hublot is perpetually reinventing ‘The Art of Fusion’. The endless options of nature are its greatest source of inspiration, an infinite source.
Created in 2004 by Jean-Claude Biver, Chairman of Hublot and President of the LVMH Group Watch Division, and Ricardo Guadalupe, CEO of Hublot, ‘The Art of Fusion’ highlights one gene which has been intrinsically rooted in the brand’s DNA since its creation in 1980, Hublot was the first to combine gold with natural rubber. Ever since, this philosophy has brought dozens of new materials to life. Unique and exclusive, some are even patented.
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