Sapphire case palette

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Sapphire case palette - Hublot
2 minutes read
What few brands use sapphire cases take advantage of its clarity. Hublot chose to add colour. No less than 8 of them, and counting

Yellow, blue, green, orange, red, pink, smoky grey and of course, transparent. These are the colours Hublot's solid sapphire timepieces are availale in. As if offering a case that's not made of metal, or ceramics, or composite wasn't enough. As if carving it into the ultra complex shape of components as diverse as those needed by Hublot's eight main models didn't suffice. As if the characteristics of that transparent, scratch-proof, light, comfortable, precious, technical and prestigious material required further selling points.

L'arc en ciel saphir

Let's be honest, sapphire is easy to dye. That's how it naturally occurs. In its gem form, it can be bought in an almost infinite array of colours, thanks to artificial techniques such as heating. But the sapphire in question here is of the synthetic kind. It's the same used for cristals and movement stones.

Sapphire case palette

Still, obtaining uniform, satisfactory, fully translucent hues from the corundum without compromising its hardness is another kettle of fish. It's no suprise that Hublot went for that colour array : it's a genuine challenge. And they then applied it to the following lines : Big Bang, Big Bang Unico, Big Bang Tourbillon, Tourbillon 5 Days and Big Bang One-Click for the ladies. It also houses serious complications as in the MP-11 Power Reserve 14 Days, LaFerrari and Ferrari Techframe, all of which feature highly complex cases.

L'arc en ciel saphir

Hublot has its ruby red (makes sense, rubies are almost the same as sapphires), a sapphire blue (makes even more sense), a pale shade of pink (makes sense for the ladies), an electric yellow (makes sense again because Hublot is all about carving a niche for itself), all of which are obtained by adding mineral elements to the corundum's basic formula, which is aluminium dioxyde. The green variety required a little extra work : their Saxem (short for Sapphire Aluminium oXyde and rare Earth Mineral), has a deep emerald hue...without the deal-breaking fragility of that gem. The latest addition to that rainbow is a vivid orange, housing a brand new automatic movement with tourbillon and micro-rotor.

Sapphire case palette
Hublot went even further than monochromatic sapphire cases. The 15 units they made of the Harrods Big Bang Unico Sapphire 45mm blend a transparent case with a Saxem bezel and a camo dial. The crazy special MP-05 LaFerrari Sapphire featured a red sapphire bridge and crown guard (makes sense once again).

Sapphire case palette

What's great with sapphire is that it's no one trick poney. As long as a shape can be carved from it, it can be used for anything, from movement component to whole case. It ends up playing key roles, much more prestigious than its original destinations (the aforementioned cristals and end stones). For instance, the Big Bang MP-11 Sapphire is built on a solid sapphire skeleton mainplate, so it's transparent inside and out.

L'arc en ciel saphir

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