Last week I was privileged to be one of the lucky staff here at Marcus to fly to the picturesque Swiss city of Geneva to visit the headquarters of Hublot.
Surrounded by orchards and vineyards and with the famous Mont Blanc mountains in the distance stands the Hublot manufacture building.
Inside the building is split into two halves, on one side you have the development, sales, marketing, and web/social media teams where a dedicated team help the brand grow worldwide with new adverts, sponsorships, and retail coordination. On the other side you have the manufacturing, creative department and the after sales service teams.
Having sold Hublot watches for the last few years I knew quite a lot about the brand already. The history of how it was the first brand to fuse Swiss made steel watches with rubber straps, how in 2004 Jean-Claude Biver joined as then CEO and created the now Iconic Big Bang model, which received the “2005 Design Prize” in the Geneva Watchmaking Grand Prix. I knew about the famous brand ambassadors like Usian Bolt and Diego Maradona. What I didn’t know was just how much of a manufacturing company it was.
I was hugely surprised by the level of watch making Hublot has achieved in its short thirty two year history, and having seen their operation first hand I don’t think they are given enough credit in terms of watch making.
Yes there are parts of the watch movement that are bought in but this is not some simple task of buying an ETA movement and merely tweaking it and dropping into a Hublot case. Most of the parts inside the Hublot calibre’s are machined in-house by a team highly trained in precision engineering using state of the art machinery. These calibre’s are then pieced together by their watch making team in-house. Situated within this watch making department is also Hublot’s amazing electro plating department, which is at the cutting edge of plating and colouring various materials used in the Hublot watches.
One of the most exciting areas, of the Hublot manufacturing area is the small dedicated team led by former BNB manufacturing owner Matthias Buttet, this is the team behind the in-house Unico movements and Hublot’s very own Tourbillon’s and Minute Repeaters. A small room of watch makers crafting some of the most difficult watch complications based on their own designs and created all by Hublot like the King Power Cathedral Minute Repeater in 100% Carbon Fibre a first of it’s kind!
It was great to meet the new CEO Mr Ricardo Guadalupe, who has taken over leadership from Mr Biver. He speaks just as passionately about the brand as Mr Biver (now Chairman of the board).
Hublot is a young and exciting place with a interesting times ahead. With new models like the the GMT (another first for Hublot), or my personal favourites the ultra thin skeleton Classic Fusion, or the Carbon Unico which will be delivered to the store in the next few months. Also there has been major developments with materials which Hublot is definitely the industry pioneer. They will be presenting the Magic Gold which is a new 18 carat scratch resistant gold which is a huge development. (keep reading the Marcus blog to see the first use of Magic Gold soon).
Hublot have also recently become an official partner with Ferrari, this doesn’t go unnoticed in the factory as there is a red 458 Italia Ferrari Challenge parked inside! As well as continued partnerships’s with Formula One and FIFA, and the AMFAR charity.
The whole trip was not only fascinating for a watcher lover like myself but it has changed the way I look at the brand Hublot. I have a greater respect for what they have achieved, a greater understanding of why Hublot is so successful, and now the next time some one purchases a Hublot at Marcus I can honestly say they are buying into not only an exciting modern brand but a real watchmaking company with vision and passion with a collection of watches to suit all areas of their every growing fan base, from the fashion conscious, to those seeking world firsts and fine watch making.
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By Alex Rose
