From Hublot to Bulgari, why watch collabs are so hot right now
Watch collabs are so hot right now, fit for a Bond Street gallery as well as boutique
Unless you count Andy Warhol’s love of his stopped Cartier, the ‘watch as canvas’ trend was arguably coined by ‘watch as fast fashion’ brand Swatch. Back in the 1980s, the plastic-fantastic pioneer got its palette and oils out for the immortal ‘Art’ line, collaborating with Keith Haring, Yoko Ono et al. This year, it’s in cahoots with Portland, Oregon Swiss ex-pat ‘Grotesk’.
Now spanning the top end of luxury watchmaking, collaborations between visual artists have become a major trend – lending more cultural clout than the rapidly sagging red-carpet scene.
It was perhaps sparked by modernist bad-boy horloger Hublot, who has hooked up with Dalston’s Sang Bleu tattoo studio and France’s sculptor of faceted gorillas, Richard Orlinski.
Mirror-dials and famous artists: behind the watch collaborations
Hublot’s latest is a second dalliance with America’s disruptive ‘modern relic’ sculptor, Daniel Arsham. The biomorphic MP-17 Meca-10 ‘Splash’ resembles a jellyfish powered by Meccano innards.
Meanwhile, this month saw the arrival of a mirror-dial Bulgari Octo, co-signed by Lee Ufan of Japan. Before that were a rainbow of ‘Grow Your Dreams’ specials by “horological concept laboratory” MB&F, informed by the exuberance of London-based British-Nigerian artist Yinka Lori. Ilori’s vibrant palette even stretches to the dial-side winding rotor, whose battle-axe shape was originally inspired by MB&F founder Max Büsser’s nostalgic passion for Manga.
This week’s biggest drop sees Piaget working with the Andy Warhol Foundation, reinterpreting a 1986 self-portrait by the NYC pop artist: a ‘Collage’ edition of just 50, featuring an intricately jigsawed dial of gemstone marquetry. Onyx, serpentine, opal, chrysoprase, framed by an ornate case design in gold.
It’s kinetic art meeting visual art, and we at London Time cannot get enough.
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