Featuring a serpent slithering around the chronograph’s three counters and a snakeskin-inspired pattern.
The intricate inner workings of a Hublot Spirit of Big Bang timepiece are impressive enough, almost akin to the winding nature of a snake. It’s a fitting turn of haute horology that works especially well with the new Hublot Spirt of Big Bang Year of the Snake in a nod to the Lunar New Year.
It’s the ninth time the luxury Swiss watchmaker has produced a seriously striking, limited-edition stunner for the Lunar New Year: Last year’s $30,000 titanium Spirit of Big Bang featured an eye-popping, dragon-inspired build. This year’s edition, limited to just 88 pieces, is an “artfully rendered” timepiece that further looks to honor “these symbolic animals in contemporary and unexpected ways,” the watchmaker said.
Hublot is also far from the only luxury watchmaker paying homage to the Chinese lunisolar calendar, as the equally bold and sporty-yet-refined Longines Conquest Heritage also celebrates the occasion. Hublot’s interpretation of the Year of the Snake takes things in a gold-plated direction rather than fiery red, relying on “lifelike details that have been engraved with astounding precision” to come up with the snake shape wound through the dial’s interior.
Almost impossibly, the serpent is “positioned as if slithering around the chronograph’s three counters,” and the effect is only more appealing with each viewing. Hublot notes “the serpent immediately catches the eye and intrigues.” Even the black rubber strap features a snakeskin-like pattern and velvet finish, an effect achieved through next-level embossing on a strap crafted from just one piece of rubber.
In leaving no stone unturned, Hublot has crafted a watch worthy of its rarity (remember, just 88 timepieces are available). For a precise interior touch, Hublot fashioned its latest Spirit of Big Bang with its own Hublot automatic skeleton chronograph caliber HUB4700, itself modeled off the El Primero. The El Primero is otherwise known as the first Swiss high-frequency integrated chronograph caliber movement ever made. In other words: A nearly one-of-a-kind watch boasts the technology and artistry to match.
