Hublot has unveiled a rainbow version of its MP-09 Tourbillon using carbon and composites instead of gemstones to create the colours.
The FIFA World Cup official timekeeper launched the rainbow-themed watch at Art Miami in Florida last week.
Hublot has already created carbon-based and ceramic materials in a range of colours, but the rainbow tourbillon watch required a new set of tools and techniques.
“Everything had to be reinvented: the concept, the method, the tools, the materials, and all the associated colour ranges,” Hublot says.
The graduated rainbow effect is actually an optical illusion created by a lattice of thin bars of carbon laid in parallel a few millimetres apart.
Bars of different colored composite are placed vertically into the gaps and protrude slightly from the carbon.
This height difference is then filled with a third carbon mesh that raises all components to the same flush surface.
“We have mastered Carbon. We have mastered traditional Rainbow setting. But no-one was yet to master 3D carbon with the Rainbow effect, quite simply because no one had thought about it. That is what makes Hublot different: we explore the unknown regions of Haute Horlogerie. This new ‘MP’ is therefore not just another Manufacture Piece: it embodies what Hublot is. Being first, unique and different. And that will never change,” says Ricardo Guadalupe, CEO of Hublot.
The £182,000 watch is a limited edition of eight pieces.
Its rainbow coloured case measures 49mm across and is worn on a multicolored alligator leather strap.
