What Hublot is known for
Swiss watchmaker since 1980 — The Art of Fusion. Ceramic, carbon and gold fusions, Big Bang bravado and bold, oversized aesthetics.
Carlo Crocco founded Hublot in 1980 with a heresy: a gold watch on a black rubber strap. The name means porthole — the bezel's exposed screws made the nautical case explicit — and the establishment's horror lasted exactly as long as it took royalty and tycoons to start wearing one comfortably. Rubber, it turned out, was the luxury.
The second act made the first look timid. Jean-Claude Biver arrived in 2004 preaching "the Art of Fusion" and delivered the Big Bang in 2005 — a layered, screwed, unmistakably loud chronograph fusing ceramic, carbon, gold and rubber that multiplied the company's revenues and won Geneva's Grand Prix. Magic Gold, the house's patented scratch-resistant gold-ceramic alloy, made the fusion thesis literal; sapphire cases made it transparent.
Under LVMH since 2008, Hublot owns the sports-marketing wrist — FIFA World Cup timekeeper, football's referee boards, Usain Bolt, Kylian Mbappé. The register is confident maximalism: engineering as spectacle, worn by people done with subtlety.
In the press
- Hodinkee 2023
How ORBIS reads this city
Best for — Fusion materials and bold contemporary watches
Made in Switzerland
More in Geneva
- Alpina — Geneva
- Baume & Mercier — Geneva
- Breguet — Geneva
- Caran d'Ache — Geneva
- Chopard — Geneva
- F.P. Journe — Geneva
- Franck Muller — Geneva
- Frederique Constant — Geneva
Where next
- Agostinho Dias, Lda (Ourivesaria) — Portugal
- Daniela Vettori Arte Orafa — Italy
- Anké by Shiv Jewels — Port Louis
Hand-curated for ORBIS · no paid placement