Hublot has come a long way since it participated in the first-ever Only Watch charity auction in 2005. For this edition of the biannual charity auction to be held on the 28th of September in Monaco, Hublot is offering the first timepiece to ever use its new bright red ceramic.
Because the process of making ceramic requires extreme temperatures and pressures, the pigments added to the zirconium oxide powder tend to destabilize, making the final color of the finished ceramic almost impossible to predict. After nearly 2 years of intensive research and testing at Hublot’s own manufacture housed metallurgy department, Hublot have come up with an all-new patent-pending process by which uniformly bright colored ceramic can be manufactured.
Since red is sort of the unofficially official color of the Only Watch auctions, Hublot has donated the first watch to ever use this bright red ceramic, a unique “Red Magic” edition of Hublot’s Classic Fusion Skeleton Tourbillon, a time-only piece in Hublot’s slimmer and more “retro” Classic Fusion case. The 45mm case is made of polished and satin-brushed black ceramic, with a red ceramic bezel that truly makes it an outstanding and unique timepiece.
Perhaps needless to say, the highlight of this unique skeleton tourbillon is its alluring bright red ceramic bezel. The color can shift from an almost brick red to a bright racing red, depending on how the light hits it. Because of its rich, vivid tones, it can be tricky at a first glance to determine whether the bezel is matte or polished. It is in fact polished on top, and matte on the side. It has an almost glossy lacquer look to it.
The dial (if you can see it) is a piece of transparent sapphire glass, allowing the lucky owner to admire the manufacture-made skeleton tourbillon movement beneath. The dial has an opening at 6 o’clock revealing the blackened tourbillon bridge and cage, set off by a red anodized aluminum ring that further accentuates the bezel. The faceted applied hour markers are rhodium treated and polished. The polished sword hands are left in a legible white metal, matching the “H” screws on the bezel and case as well as the moving parts of the movement.
The skeleton tourbillon movement is designed, manufactured, finished and assembled in-house at Hublot’s high complications department. The extra-thin angular bridges give the movement a very angular look and are treated in black rhodium with a satin-brushed finish on the topside and a perlage finish on the underside. The twin barrels are stacked on top of one another and are partially skeletonized to reveal the mainsprings within. When fully wound, they deliver a power reserve of 5 days (120 hours).
The Bright Red Skeleton Tourbillon is Hublot’s most impressive Only Watch unique piece contribution to date, and marks an important milestone for Hublot and its progressive R&D endeavors.
