FeatureA Rainbow On Your Wrist: The New Classic Fusion By Hublot And Takashi Murakami
The Classic Fusion Takashi Murakami Black Ceramic Rainbow watch, birthed from the fourth instalment of the Takashi Murakami-Hublot partnership, comes with its own NFT and preference for longstanding patrons
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The fourth artistic collaboration between the ‘Japanese Andy Warhol’ alias artist Takashi Murakami and Swiss watchmaker, Hublot, has birthed a limited edition of 13 Classic Fusion Takashi Murakami Black Ceramic Rainbow watches and NFTs (non-fungible tokens) corresponding to each.
During the recent unveiling at Hublot’s Glass House in New York, the world was given a sneak peek of one of the 13 pieces. The rest of the 12 watches and NFTs will debut at the prestigious Watches and Wonders 2023, to be held from March 27 to April 2 in Geneva.
The Magic Of Murakami
Murakami’s collaboration with Hublot maybe longstanding, but also throws light on his soaring popularity, as the ‘serial collaborator’ has partnered with a range of icons. These include collaborations with musicians Kanye West, Pharrell Williams and Billie Eilish, as well as fashion maison Louis Vuitton—Hublot’s sister brand from the LVMH Group. It’s easy to identify a Murakami work given its one-of-a-kind imagery involving mass replication of anime-inspired iconic motifs such as the skull, mushroom, smiling flower, and even mascots such as Mr DOB, on paintings, sculptures, and videos.
Murakami began his own art movement, Superflat, in 2000 that ‘flattens’ or eliminates depth from themes and characters derived from myriad influences such as ancient ukiyo-e style Japanese wood prints to everyday consumerism in a bid to topple the ‘classist’ ideas of what is good or bad art. Like his role model, contemporary art biggie Jeff Koons, Murakami employs hundreds of helping hands from low-income groups to assist him on his mass-produced art projects.
The smiling flower on the Hublot dial, formally called ‘Flowers’, made its debut in 1995 and instantly sprung to fame with several high-profile appearances in the subsequent two decades. From Kanye West’s album art, Drake’s clothing line, Porter bags, Ben Baller jewellery to Hajime Asaoka’s tourbillon watch and more… The Flowers created the most impact with the Hublot ‘collab’ as over one million funds were raised for COVID relief from the sale of the ‘Supreme X Takashi Murakami’ box logo. While its depiction appears childlike, this floral motif perhaps nudges at the idiom, ‘enjoy it till its lasts’, as Murakami created it to evoke the unfathomable loss and pain felt by survivors 0f the 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
The Hublot-Murakami Classic Fusion Legacy
Murakami’s association with Hublot, since January 2021, kick-started a series with his iconic smiling flower imagery on the dial of all the watch models, despite the collection transitioning from all-black to transparent aesthetics with rainbow hues, to black with rainbow hues.
These models have also stayed true to Hublot’s signature feature—rubber straps with stainless steel folding clasps. The debut model was the Classic Fusion Takashi Murakami All Black watch featuring a black lacquer dial encrusted with 456 black diamonds on the petals and 107 on the smiling face. As a complete departure from the previous model, material-wise, came the Classic Fusion Takashi Murakami Sapphire Rainbow model in December 2021, studded with 487 stones on the solitary-flower dial, and all of it housed within an all-transparent sapphire crystal case fitted with metal screws. Marking the third Murakami-Hublot collaboration was the issuing of 324 NFTs in April 2022 from the decentralised NFT exchange platform OpenSea.
The Classic Fusion Takashi Murakami Black Ceramic Rainbow watch is the latest product of this partnership, and in continuum with the ‘Hublot loves art!’ concept and motto, ‘The art of fusion’ where art and technology coalesce. Each NFT is a cartoonish pixelated version of a black watch with the smiling face in different dial and background hues; and each NFT corresponds to the watch attached to it.
Black Beauty
The Black Rainbow or the 13th watch takes the series forward, by drawing inspiration from the 1970s Japanese video games and presenting it as Murakami’s iconic floral pattern. A giant flower with 12 petals blossoms across the entire rhodium-plated dial, housed in a 45mm black ceramic case, with each petal signifying an hour marker.
The entire flower is made from 487 rubies, sapphires, amethysts, tsavorites and topazes to signify a radiant rainbow. With each wrist movement these petals spin and create a polychromatic whirl for a brief, yet heady moment, courtesy the inbuilt ball-bearing system by Hublot. This eccentricity matches the wide grin at the flower’s core, a 3-D structure mounted atop the sapphire crystal encasing the dial and imprinted with a white logo. The in-house manufacture MHUB1214 Unico calibre powers this self-winding mechanical watch that operates at 28,800vph and promises 72 hours of power reserve. Moreover, the ceramic case offers 50m water resistance.
Collector’s Privilege
The Black Ceramic Rainbow watch allows buyers to become collectors as only owners of the 324 NFTs are entitled to buy this watch. These buyers are those who had purchased at least one of the previous two ‘Hublot X Takashi Murakami’ models. The lucky few who will have bought any of the 12 pieces by April 2024, get to trade the corresponding 12 NFTs on OpenSea and unlock the opportunity to buy the 13th watch—the Black Fusion Rainbow. If no collector succeeds, Hublot will host a charity auction for the watch.
