Hublot Spirit of Big Bang Year of the Snake
The Year of the Snake, according to the Chinese zodiac, begins on January 29th in 2025, obviously at the stroke of midnight. And for that moment there are already themed watches, ready to record all the hours of the Year of the Snake. Like the new Hublot, which since 2016 has celebrated every Chinese New Year with a dedicated and decorated edition of the Spirit of Big Bang. Reinterpreting these symbolic animals, the maison has created a refined version of the snake that extends from the dial to the case and even to the strap of the Spirit of Big Bang Year of the Snake, a limited edition of 88 pieces. The open dial of the Spirit of Big Bang allows you to admire the inner workings of the chronograph movement, housing a golden snake. The three-dimensional gold-plated snake is characterized by realistic details, engraved with astonishing precision made possible by the latest advances in laser technology. Positioned as if slithering around the three counters of the chronograph, the snake immediately catches the eye and intrigues.
The tonneau-shaped black ceramic case is equipped with Hublot’s One Click strap changing mechanism and is topped with a screwed ceramic bezel engraved with a snake scale pattern. This pattern extends to the black rubber strap, which features a unique velvety finish with subtle shimmering touches, despite being entirely crafted using an innovative embossing technique from a single piece of rubber. The Spirit of Big Bang Year of the Snake is powered by Hublot’s HUB4700 skeletonized automatic chronograph calibre, a modernised descendant of the historic and highly regarded El Primero, considered the first integrated Swiss high-frequency chronograph calibre ever made. Visible through both the open dial and the sapphire caseback, the movement features a series of innovations and technical advances compared to the 1969 original, including a low-friction silicon escape wheel
Arnold & Son Perpetual Moon 41.5 Year of the Snake
A different kind of timepiece, but still in the Year of the Snake theme, comes from Arnold & Son, who have created the Perpetual Moon 41.5 Year of the Snake, a series of just eight pieces in red gold. It combines a large lunar astronomical manufacture calibre, one of the house’s specialities, an aventurine glass dial, one of its signatures, and a series of finely executed artistic crafts, one of the Maison’s recurring themes. Its crowning glory is a swaying serpent that dominates the dial, wrapped around the branch of a Ginkgo biloba tree. Set on a blue aventurine glass dial, the serpent is hand-engraved from a block of 18-carat pink gold. Fine scales, a forked tongue, a broad, flat head, it presents itself with remarkable realism. Also very realistic thanks to its shadows, the large white mother-of-pearl moon is treated with Super-LumiNova. It lights up an aventurine glass sky and is embraced by the constellations of Ursa Major and Cassiopeia, also hand-painted with a luminescent material. The choice of these star configurations directly refers to John Arnold’s history of marine chronometry. In every era, in fact, the stars have been the main point of reference for navigators.
On the caseback, a secondary moon phase indicator allows rapid and precise adjustment of the complication. The manually wound caliber that drives the Perpetual Moon 41.5 Red Gold Year of the Snake marks the progress of the moon with exceptional precision. The duration of a complete lunar cycle is in fact 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 2.8 seconds. Arnold & Son manages to approximate it to the point that it would take 122 years for this movement, if regularly wound, to accumulate one day of deviation from the celestial reality.
Like all Arnold & Son movements, the A&S1512 calibre was entirely developed, manufactured, decorated, assembled, adjusted and cased within the manufacture in La Chaux-de-Fonds. This calibre is based on two barrels and has an oscillation frequency of 3 Hz, for a power reserve of 90 hours.
