The Hublot Big Bang Unico Winter Sapphire and Titanium Ceramic temper the brand’s larger-than-life styling
Winter may call for hibernation, but anyone who expected Hublot—a maverick brand known for its unconventional and daring designs—to sit idle has plenty to learn. With 2025 marking the maison’s 20th anniversary of its now-iconic Big Bang, it seems only apt that we end the year with a pair of new variations from its more modern Big Bang Unico collection.
Unveiling two new winter-themed timepieces, the maison looks to temper the larger-than-life styling of its Big Bang Unico collection with icy coolness. Unsurprisingly, both models—the Big Bang Unico Winter Sapphire and the Big Bang Unico Winter Titanium Ceramic—are emblematic of Hublot’s long-standing affinity for material experimentation. It is, after all, a realm in which the brand has consistently pushed boundaries, from the glowing green tones of the Big Bang Tourbillon Automatic Green Saxem to the eye-catching patterns of the Big Bang Unico Magic Ceramic.
Unlike the Saxem and Magic Ceramic, however, the 42mm Big Bang Unico Winter Sapphire trades vivid colour for a clean, crystalline clarity. Housed almost entirely in polished sapphire, the openworked timepiece offers a fully unobstructed view of the Unico movement within.
The transparency lends the watch a frosty allure, softening the Big Bang’s typically assertive presence without diluting its character. Of course, certain elements such as the screws, pushers, and patented one click strap system remain in titanium for structural integrity.
The Big Bang Unico Winter Titanium Ceramic, meanwhile, approaches the seasonal theme with a different temperament. Sharing the same 42mm dimensions as its sibling, the watch’s microblasted titanium case delivers a subdued, matte texture that’s accentuated by a polar-white ceramic bezel.
More than anything else, the choice of materials imbues the watch with a sportive ruggedness that eludes the delicate, crystalline splendour of the Sapphire variation. That said, it is the colour palette and the clever contrast between titanium and white ceramic that allows the timepiece to retain its wintry allure.
Powering both watches is the HUB1280 Unico Manufacture movement—a flyback, column-wheel chronograph calibre that incorporates a silicon escapement and offers a 72-hour power reserve. A closer look through the sapphire caseback reveals further winter cues: light-blue bridges and an oscillating weight shaped like a snowflake, finished in grey ruthenium-coated tungsten.
With strap options—white rubber paired with white calfskin, with an additional white rubber and blue calfskin option included with each watch—maintaining the same understated palette, the Hublot Big Bang Unico Winter Sapphire and Winter Titanium Ceramic editions are tempered (and wintry) expressions of the maison’s extroverted design language.
