An out-of-this-world watch collaboration, and two other horological hookups
Tag Heuer teamed up with the Chinese Lunar Exploration Programme, because, why not? Plus Hublot and Zenith’s unexpected partnerships
All right stop, collaborate and listen. I’m back with some brand new inventions. Watches that have grabbed a hold of me tightly. Let me flow that harpoon daily and nightly. Will it ever stop? Yo, I don’t know. Turn off the lights and see these watches glow. To the extreme, I rock a keyboard like a vandal. Light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle. Or something.
The intro to this week’s watch column is as tenuous as ever but the keyword is “collaborate” as I’m going to run through some horological hookups that are as odd and entertaining as Vanilla Ice and Queen. Every year there are one-off collaborations between watch companies and entities ranging from fashion brands to car companies to military divisions. Most make sense, others fall in the WTF category, such as the Zenith Pilot Type 20 Chronograph Trinidad Edition. The market for this watch is as niche as it gets, which is why there’s a limited run of 150 pieces (50 each in rose gold, yellow gold and white gold). It was made to mark the 50th anniversary of Cohiba’s Trinidad cigar. Yes, this watch celebrated the anniversary of a cigar.
Zenith has made liberal use of cigar brown, as seen with the tobacco-leaf textured dial and the leather strap. And there are logos aplenty on the dial, caseback and strap. The watch is large at 45mm and inside is an excellent El Primero 4069 chronograph movement with 50 hours of power reserve. It is esoteric, sure, but I kind of admire the gaudiness of this watch and it will appeal to cigar aficionados. The watch is priced at HK$233,000.
Now that the party is jumping. With the bass kicked in, the fingers are pumpin’, we’ll move on to the next watch, which is less niche, I suppose, but definitely for a limited audience. Hublot is perhaps the watch king of collaboration. It will literally collaborate with anyone and everything but its link-up with Garage Italia caught my eye.
The brainchild of Fiat heir and style icon Lapo Elkann, Garage Italia is a high-end customisation house that is one part restaurant, one part interior-design store and one part car showroom, all located in a modernist building in Milan. Garage Italia is cool in that style-over-substance way, and so it is with the Hublot Classic Fusion Chronograph Garage Italia.
I’m not ordinarily a fan of the Classic Fusion line but I’ll admit the colour and design touches here are achingly trendy. The stand-out feature is the light and dark blue satin-finished ceramic on the 45mm case. The large Garage Italia logo at the three o’clock position dominates the watch but, given the nature of the collaborators, that makes sense. Inside, is a HUB1143 Unico chronograph movement with 42 hours of power reserve and the watch comes with a dark-blue rubber strap. Limited to 100 pieces, the watch is priced at €13,900 (HK$121,500).
Quick to the point, to the point no faking, I’m cooking other watch writers like a pound of bacon, so we’ll end with the most mainstream of collaborations. Tag Heuer has since 2014 been run by Jean-Claude Biver, the man who built Hublot into a powerhouse and has followed the collaboration formula.
Last year, Tag Heuer linked up with the Chinese Lunar Exploration Programme (CLEP) for two limited-edition watches, of which I prefer the Aquaracer edition, which keeps things simple but still has the large moon motif on the dial. Coming in a 43mm steel case, with a nylon strap, the dive watch has a rotating bezel and 300 metres of water resistance, so it is a hardy timepiece. The movement is a Calibre 5 with an anaemic 38 hours of power reserve. On the back are more CLEP-related engravings. The watch is priced at US$2,700.
Yo! It’s time to get out of here so word to your mother.
