Hublot’s newly minted chief executive is pacing himself. “Too many new watches and too many limited editions can kill the key launches,” says Julien Tornare, who took on the role ahead of the 20th anniversary of Hublot’s best-selling model, the Big Bang. “We need to stabilise while continuing to bring [in] new things in a more steady, less opportunistic way.”
Tornare was still keen to have something to show in time for LVMH’s Watch Week event, as evidenced by the four new versions of the Big Bang — including a £200,000 Green Saxem (which stands for Sapphire Aluminium oXide rare Earth Mineral). However, more important celebratory pieces will be unveiled during April’s larger annual Watches and Wonders show in Geneva.
Created by horological marketing doyen Jean-Claude Biver, the Big Bang — with its giant 44mm case and avant garde mix of materials that included rubber, resin, Kevlar and gold — revived the then ailing Hublot in 2005.
Tornare’s focus is now on bringing back the brand’s golden era. According to Morgan Stanley’s annual watch industry report, Hublot was fast losing its lustre prior to his arrival, with sales dropping 10 per cent in 2023. By the last quarter of 2024, this had been arrested to 0.8 per cent. Tornare believes the general perception of Hublot is one of a polarising and “hyperactive” brand, detracting from its often overlooked prowess as a watchmaker. “I will be working more on a three-year type of plan than what has gone before,” he says.
Tornare also aims to rethink Hublot’s extensive sponsorship commitments and “rebalance” its activities in sport, music and art while recognising that its pioneering partnership with football — both the women’s and men’s games — has been a big success. “Football has been great,” he says. “We were the first luxury brand to go into the game, which was previously perceived as a mass world with little relevance to luxury goods. But it reaches everyone and crosses all social levels.”
Tornare also wants to revive activities around the 200,000-strong “Hublotista” owners community by staging events worldwide, to cap the number of boutiques at the current level of 68, and to maintain the price of an entry-level Hublot at around SFr6,000 ($6,600) while aiming to “increase both actual and perceived value”. “My plan is to take the best of what has been done by my three predecessors,” he says.
Hublot was conceived during the late 1970s by Carlo Crocco, nephew of the founder of Innocente Binda — the now 119-year-old Milan-based business that makes watches, jewellery and leather goods, many under licence from major brands.
Having played a big role in developing the Breil dial name for Binda, Crocco opted to branch out on his own in 1976, setting up MDM (for Marie Daniel Montres, named after his wife) — a moderately successful maker of women’s watches.
But Crocco’s eureka moment came with his then-revolutionary idea of fitting a luxury watch in the shape of a porthole (hublot in French) with a vanilla-scented, integrated rubber bracelet. This original example of the “fusion watchmaking” that was to become Hublot’s mantra caused a stir when it was unveiled at the 1980 Basel show, leading to sales of around 50,000 watches in the first five years of production.
Royal patronage followed, with kings Constantine of Greece, Juan Carlos of Spain, and Gustaf of Sweden choosing to wear a Hublot, along with an impressive roster of other famous individuals, from Hollywood stars Sylvester Stallone, Candice Bergen, and Eddie Murphy to artist Andy Warhol, opera singer José Carreras, Formula One driver Jacques Laffite, and musician Elton John.
By 2004, though, the success had faded for Hublot and annual losses were running at around SFr2mn — at which point Crocco turned to Biver, allowing him to take a 20 per cent stake in the business and giving him full responsibility for its restructuring.
Having already revived Omega and Blancpain, Biver’s strategy was to put the “fusion” theme into overdrive with the all-new and audacious Big Bang — a watch that quickly won countless awards and attracted scores of rich and famous buyers. Then, three years after the Big Bang launched, LVMH completed negotiations with Biver and Crocco to buy Hublot for 12 times its 2007-08 earnings before interest and tax — an amount estimated to have been in excess of SFr450mn.
For the next decade or more, it seemed that Hublot could do no wrong as it launched model after model of the Big Bang, featuring such diverse materials as carbon fibre, bulletproof cermet composite, its own King and Magic gold, sapphire, titanium, aluminium, ceramic, and more.
Some were encased in diamonds and some were engraved with tattoo motifs. Others had embroidered dials, while some incorporated denim and others served as showcases for Hublot’s own, often complex, in-house movements.
Just as extensive was the list of brand ambassadors, from pop band Depeche Mode to sprinter Usain Bolt, artist Takashi Murakami, pianist Lang Lang, Agnelli family scion Lapo Elkann, and an assortment of golfers, skiers, yacht racers, athletes, and polo players.
In 2012, Biver stepped down as Hublot chief executive, handing the reins to his prodigy Ricardo Guadalupe, who remained in charge until September last year, when he was replaced by Tornare. Just six months earlier, Tornare had been called in to head Tag Heuer, having successfully rebooted Zenith between 2017 and 2023. Tornare’s track record with LVMH — and during his previous 17 years with Richemont-owned Vacheron Constantin — identifies him as both a safe pair of hands and someone with a talent for refocusing a brand’s direction.
“Mr Crocco was the first to talk about fusion; Jean-Claude Biver made Hublot a very modern, very marketing-orientated brand, and Ricardo worked on the verticalisation of movement development and the overall watchmaking aspect,” says Tornare. “There is still a way to go to take the best of those three periods in order to make Hublot a really key player for the coming 20 years and more.”
Danny Shahid, proprietor of Mayfair-based Diamond Watches London, says it is a strategy that could provide the fillip Hublot needs. “I definitely agree that it has previously made way too many limited editions,” says Shahid. He believes that, if Tornare focuses on movements and smaller case sizes, the brand can thrive again.
“We do see a market for Hublot, but mainly for earlier versions with precious metal cases — not so much for Big Bangs made from coloured ceramics and so on. The watch world has changed in the 20 years since the Big Bang was launched. A lot of people just don’t think that look is cool these days.”
