Purveyor of loud watches Hublot recently announced their upcoming Big Bang Wally, the celebratory effort created in honor of the watch company’s long-time collaboration with Monaco-based Wally Yachts. Hublot, a common sight in the sports world, has been the official timekeeper of the Wally Class during their regattas.
A limited edition of 500, the Big Bang Wally is a lightweight affair (physically, that is) made of Hublonium (the somewhat uninspired name for Hublot’s patented alloy of aluminium and magnesium) resin, PVD and stainless steel, with a titanium movement and the trademark Hublot rubber strap. Nothing unusual for Hublot, in other words.
What caught my eye with the Big Bang Wally was the colorway. Personally, I’ve always felt that the Big Bang was just too much trend and hype in a single watch, the dials were always too cluttered and it just felt like a model that wouldn’t stand the test of time (there’s no surprise that I much prefer the original Royal Oak over the Offshore, to name another instance where less is more). However, with the Big Bang Wally, and especially the colorway, I feel that Hublot has found its feet. There’s just something so wonderfully understated about the design, a word I thought I’d never use to describe Hublot.
As for crossovers between the yacht world and the watch world, I’m still not entirely convinced. Although Hublot’s submission is nowhere near as horrible as, let’s say, the Yacht-master, the dive watch nerd in me still wishes that the Big Bang would be WR-certified to more than 100m (even if it wouldn’t be necessary, given the use). At the end of the day, I’m a tool watch junkie and the whole yacht watch phenomenon just feels like a gimmick to co-promote brands rather than making purpose-built timepieces.
