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No brand in the Swiss watch industry generates stronger opinions than Hublot. Among traditional collectors, Hublot is often dismissed as a marketing-driven brand that prioritizes celebrity endorsements and limited editions over horological substance. Among material scientists and engineers, Hublot is recognized as one of the most innovative manufacturers in the industry, with proprietary alloys, ceramic compounds, and case materials that no other watchmaker has been able to replicate. Both perspectives contain truth, and the tension between them is what makes Hublot one of the most interesting stories in modern watchmaking.
Hublot is part of LVMH (alongside TAG Heuer, Zenith, and Bvlgari), and under the leadership of Jean-Claude Biver (who ran the brand from 2004 to 2018) and current CEO Ricardo Guadalupe, the brand has grown from a niche curiosity into a global luxury powerhouse. It is the official timekeeper of the FIFA World Cup, the Premier League, Ferrari in Formula 1, and dozens of other high-profile sports and entertainment properties. The commercial success is undeniable. The question that collectors debate is whether the watches themselves justify the prices and the visibility.
Origins
Carlo Crocco, an Italian watchmaker, founded Hublot in 1980 with a single radical idea: a gold watch on a rubber strap. At the time, this was considered borderline offensive by the Swiss watch establishment. Gold watches came on gold bracelets or leather straps. Rubber was for dive watches and tool watches, not luxury. The original Hublot Classic was met with resistance from retailers and collectors alike, but it found an audience among a younger, less traditional luxury consumer.
The brand remained relatively small for over two decades, building a loyal but niche following among buyers who appreciated the unconventional gold-and-rubber combination. By the early 2000s, Hublot was producing around 20,000 watches per year, a modest number that did not reflect any particular commercial ambition. The inflection point came in 2004, when LVMH’s watch division chief, Jean-Claude Biver, recognized the brand’s untapped potential. Biver had previously rescued Blancpain from near-extinction in the 1980s and then led Omega through a period of significant growth. He saw in Hublot a brand with a genuinely original idea (the fusion of luxury materials with industrial ones) that had never been properly developed commercially.
Biver joined as CEO in 2004 and immediately began reorienting the brand. He coined the philosophy of “The Art of Fusion” and in 2005 launched the Big Bang, a watch that pushed the material-mixing concept to its logical extreme: gold and ceramic, titanium and rubber, carbon fiber and sapphire, all in a single bold, oversized chronograph. The Big Bang was a sensation. It won the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève in 2005 and transformed Hublot almost overnight from a niche curiosity into one of the most talked-about brands in the industry. LVMH, recognizing the momentum Biver had created, acquired Hublot outright in 2008 for an undisclosed sum estimated at CHF 380 to 500 million (roughly two times 2008 sales). The acquisition placed Hublot alongside TAG Heuer and Zenith in LVMH’s watch portfolio, and Biver eventually rose to oversee all three brands before stepping back from day-to-day management in 2018.
Material Innovation
Hublot’s most legitimate claim to horological significance is its material science program. The brand operates a dedicated metallurgy laboratory and has developed proprietary materials that exist nowhere else in watchmaking.
Magic Gold is Hublot’s scratch-resistant 18-karat gold, created by fusing gold with a ceramic matrix under extreme heat and pressure. The result is a material that is genuinely 18-karat gold (and carries the official hallmark) but has a Vickers hardness of approximately 1,000, compared to about 400 for conventional gold. Magic Gold cannot be scratched by everyday wear. No other brand has achieved this.
Hublot has also developed proprietary colored ceramic compounds (including bright red, blue, yellow, and green ceramics that maintain color consistency through the entire material, not just a surface coating), sapphire crystal cases machined from single blocks of synthetic sapphire, and texalium (a carbon fiber weave with colored aluminum thread). The brand’s manufacture in Nyon, Switzerland, includes a foundry and materials lab that more closely resembles an aerospace facility than a traditional watch workshop.
These innovations are real and technically impressive. The criticism from traditionalists is not that the materials are gimmicks but that they are deployed in watches whose design language prioritizes visual impact over the quiet refinement that characterizes most haute horlogerie.
The Collections
The Big Bang is Hublot’s defining collection and its commercial backbone. The 44mm case with its signature H-shaped screws on the bezel, integrated rubber strap, and exposed sandwich construction has been produced in hundreds of variations across every material Hublot has developed. The Big Bang is available as a chronograph, tourbillon, minute repeater, and various complications, in steel, titanium, ceramic, gold, Magic Gold, sapphire, and combinations thereof. Retail prices start around $12,000 for the Big Bang Steel and climb past $200,000 for high-complication and exotic-material references.
The Classic Fusion is Hublot’s more restrained offering, with a thinner case and less aggressive design than the Big Bang. It is aimed at buyers who appreciate Hublot’s materials and craftsmanship but prefer a more understated profile. Available in 33mm to 45mm sizes, the Classic Fusion ranges from approximately $5,000 to $30,000 depending on material and complication.
The Spirit of Big Bang applies the Big Bang’s design language to a tonneau (barrel-shaped) case, while the Square Bang reinterprets it in a square format. The MP (Masterpiece) collection houses Hublot’s most extreme complications and experimental pieces, including the LaFerrari and the MP-05, with prices that can exceed $500,000.
Buying Hublot Today
Hublot watches are available at Hublot boutiques and authorized retailers worldwide. LVMH’s distribution infrastructure ensures broad availability, and most standard production references can be purchased without a waitlist. Limited editions and special materials sell out more quickly, and certain high-profile collaborations (Ferrari, Berluti, various artists and athletes) carry allocation constraints.
Retail prices range from approximately $5,000 for an entry-level Classic Fusion to $12,000 to $20,000 for a Big Bang in steel or titanium, to $30,000 and above for ceramic, gold, and Magic Gold references, and well into six figures for complications and sapphire cases.
On the secondary market, Hublot depreciates more than many brands at comparable retail prices, with pre-owned prices typically running 35 to 50% below retail. A Big Bang Steel chronograph that retails for $14,000 can be found pre-owned for $7,000 to $9,000. A Classic Fusion for $3,000 to $5,000. This depreciation reflects the high volume of limited editions (which are often not as limited as the name implies) and the brand’s polarizing reputation among resale-focused collectors.
Whether Hublot is for you depends on what you value. If you want technical innovation in materials science, bold design, and a brand that is unafraid to be different, Hublot delivers all three at a level that deserves more credit than it typically receives from the collector community. If you value quiet refinement, classical design, and strong resale value, Hublot is likely not your brand. What it is not, despite what some forums will tell you, is unserious. The materials are real, the manufacture is real, and the watchmaking is more substantive than the marketing sometimes suggests.
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This article is for informational purposes only. Prices, secondary market values, and specifications are approximate and based on market conditions as of early 2026. Hublot is a registered trademark of Hublot SA, a subsidiary of LVMH. Tempo is not affiliated with or endorsed by Hublot or LVMH.