new collaboration with designer Maxime Plescia-Buschi
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The watch manufacturer Hublot is once again collaborating with tattoo artist Maxime Plescia-Buschi. Spirit of Big Bang Sang Bleu Sapphire is their fourth joint project, but this time something fundamentally new appeared, namely a new material – sapphire, which, of course, gave a new dimension to the whole project.
Maxime Bushi is not only a famous tattoo artist, whose tattoo studio Sang Bleu (“Blue Blood”) first opened in London, and then in Los Angeles and Zurich, he is also a graphic artist (that is, a graphic designer who works with fonts and other typography) , and an artist who graduated from the Cantonal School of Art in Lausanne. Everything that he studied at school, everything that he was interested in – the art of the 19th century, graphic design, including the Russian avant-garde – he transformed in the most original way into his tattoo style, where geometry, and literally geometric shapes – triangles, quadrangles , hexagons, circles, rhombuses—became defining.
They met with Hublot almost nine years ago, their first collaboration – Big Bang 3-Hands – was released in 2016, then, in 2019, the Big Bang Chronograph was presented, and in 2023 – the Spirit of Big Bang Chronograph. During this time, Hublot and Bushi switched from the round case of the Big Bang to the barrel case of the Spirit of Big Bang, which Maxim finds more modern and ergonomic, closer in essence to the screen of a smartphone. We also examined different, and almost all, materials that Hublot works with – gold, titanium, ceramics. This time, as last time, the 42mm diameter, which fits any wrist, and the same barrel-shaped case have been used, as well as the HUB4700 movement, a skeletonized automatic chronograph with a date display at 4:30, and a power reserve of 50 hours. and a rotor redesigned in Sang Bleu style. But sapphire fundamentally changed the aesthetics and became, of course, a new frontier for both of them.
For Maxim Bushi – because it was necessary to create his three-dimensional geometry here, dealing with complete transparency, and this could not help but change the approach itself: this three-dimensionality of it was not just cut out in sapphire, but seemed to be assembled layer by layer, and this multilayeredness, where the octagons superimposed on hexagons, and triangles tattooed inside diamonds, became defining for all design work. And the transparency of the sapphire was intended to embody as closely and clearly as possible the idea of Bushi, which was the basis of this entire joint project from the very beginning: a watch as a tattoo on the wrist. “This time,” he explains, “we have transferred the fusion of Hublot and Sang Bleu, which has become our DNA, to Hublot’s signature material, sapphire, which we have never used before. This is an important point because sapphire is the most noble material used in the watch industry, and at the same time it gives the watch something ghostly and futuristic, almost architectural. And this fits perfectly with exactly what I was looking for in all my projects.”
For Hublot, the very principle of tattooing, that is, the idea of creating the entire graphic so that it appears tattooed on the transparent surface of the sapphire, became the defining technical challenge. The interplay of surfaces—polished and satin-finished, engraved and chiselled, beveled and faceted—that in previous iterations created the distinctive Sang Bleu design had to be recreated here in a completely different material. With the full transparency extended to the dial, to the Sang Bleu-designed disc-shaped hands, to the bezel and case, nothing works the same, the material changes not only the aesthetics, but also the technical challenges. The only opaque elements here are the crown, pushers, screws on the case, 6 H-shaped screws on the bezel and folding clasp, all cut from titanium, and the movement components.
All this absolute transparency and complex geometry require perfect finishing, and the very idea of tattooing requires new approaches to working with sapphire. It took 3D machining and over 100 hours of work because the Spirit of Big Bang Sang Bleu sapphire is almost as hard and scratch-resistant as a diamond (9 on the Mohs scale, compared to 10 for diamonds). Hublot CEO Ricardo Guadalupe says: “Each model challenges us to strive for technical and aesthetic perfection. The use of sapphire in the complex geometry of the Sang Bleu polygonal tattoo meant that we again had to expand the boundaries of our use of this iconic material. Sapphire gives Maxim’s 3D tattoos new geometric clarity and depth, it also gives us the opportunity to rethink their technical production, take on new challenges, optimize our processes and break new barriers.”
It is clear that it was Hublot, with its original impulse to seek previously untrodden paths and with its constant desire to expand the space of art collaborations, that could even come up with and implement this entire project with a tattoo artist. But the principle of fusion itself, which forms Hublot’s approach to everything – the principle of connecting the incompatible, penetrating one into the other and transforming one through the other – is very close to Sang Bleu, and it became the foundation on which their common success grew.
Let’s just add that 100 pieces of the Spirit of Big Bang Sang Bleu Sapphire watch will be produced, and, in addition to the sapphire version, there is also a jewelry version – in white or pink King Gold gold, lined with baguette diamonds.
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