“Be first, be unique, be different.” Hublot’s mantra doubles as a guiding set of principles that were set forth and exemplified in 1980 by the Swiss watchmaker’s debut model—the Classic Original—the first true luxury watch to combine a precious metal (gold) with a modern material (rubber).
A quarter-century later, adherence to those same principles birthed Hublot’s best-selling Big Bang range, which also utilized revolutionary medleys of materials including ceramic, titanium and gold. The flagship Big Bang collection’s veneration came immediately; a white ceramic and titanium example won that year’s coveted Design Prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève.
But the Hublot timepieces that take the “be first, be unique, be different” philosophy to its extreme are the Manufacture Pieces. “With all our Manufacture Pieces, or MPs, we allow innovation to guide the conception of the watch,” Ricardo Guadalupe, Hublot’s CEO, tells us. “The Manufacture Piece range is a representation of our ‘Art of Fusion’—the fusion of high watchmaking, high-tech materials and our savoir faire.”
The MP collection kicked off in 2011 with the MP-01, featuring Hublot’s first barrel-shaped case (in titanium) and a barrel-shaped chronograph movement. In 2013, the MP-05 “LaFerrari,” named after the apex Ferrari hypercar that inspired it, set a yet-unbroken world record for the longest power reserve in a tourbillon at 50 hours.
The MP-09, which debuted in 2017, was purpose-built to maximize visibility of its wild bi-axis tourbillon, employing a three-sided sapphire glass that commands onlookers’ gazes. And most recently, the Hublot MP-10 Weight Energy System Titanium debuted at LVMH Watch Week 2024.
“The goal was to reinvent the self-winding system with vertical weights,” Gaudalupe says of the latest MP family member. “By displaying the hours, minutes and the power reserve in a different way, we are able to achieve a singular and extremely unique watch that captures the philosophy of innovation that we value at Hublot.”
The finished product is limited to 50 units, priced at $264,000 apiece. Very few new timepieces can command that much, but the figure is completely warranted given the R&D that went into the MP-10. “This was a project that took several years. When we work with the product and technical department, we ask ourselves, ‘How can we create something that is out of the box? How will this MP be different from anything else that exists in high watchmaking?’ I gave our designers and watchmakers carte blanche, and this is the fruit of their labors.”
The MP-10’s defining characteristic lies in what it lacks: It has no hands, no indices and no dial. Instead, there are four constantly rotating aluminum roller displays that are integral to the movement. The top two rollers show the hours and minutes in white lacquer typography, while the third roller indicates the amount of 48-hour power reserve remaining with a red-and-green meter. The fourth roller shows seconds and wraps around the top of the tourbillon cage, which is canted at a 35-degree angle for increased visibility.
The practical reason for this experimental setup is simple: The wearer’s eyes can naturally read the time vertically from top to bottom. But the setup also necessitated the “verticalization” of movement itself, as Hublot puts it. On either side of the central architecture sit two blocks of white gold weights that move freely on a vertical axis; this is the titular “Weight Energy System.” These two vertical weights engage a rack and almost magically wind the movement bidirectionally—courtesy of patent-pending Hublot technology—via the crown at 12 o’clock. A second crown located on the caseback is used to set the time.
The only “simple” component of the MP-10 is the two-piece titanium case, but even that is topped with Hublot’s most complex sapphire crystal to date, which combines planes on three axes. Bolder than the MP-10’s price or design, though, is the influence Guadalupe predicts it will have on the watchmaking world: “From now on, people will talk about the MP-10 Tourbillon Weight Energy System Titanium in terms of ‘before’ and ‘after’. ” Only time will tell.