For his fourth timepiece with Hublot, Samuel Ross has swapped trippy tourbillons for high-craft chronographs. With a different movement and new materials at play, what does this direction change look like?
Samuel Ross is not bound by form or discipline. The British creator’s work spans fashion, art, sculpture, and industrial design. At A-Cold-Wall*, the menswear label he founded in 2015 and sold in 2024, his mash-up of Savile Row precision and steadfast streetwear quickly bagged acclaim – pulling on influences from architecture, race, and the British class system. Ross scooped the British Fashion Award for Emerging Menswear Designer in 2018 and was shortlisted for the LVMH Prize and ANDAM Award. The brand also served as a launchpad for collaborations with Nike, Oakley, and Dr Martens. In 2019, he founded SR_A, his latest cross-media design venture. Here he’s worked on projects spanning clothing, fragrance, wearable technology and watches, with the latter born from a Hublot Design Prize win in 2019.
In the context of historic watchmaking, Hublot is one of the newer kids on the block. Founded in 1980, it’s a mere teenager compared to other maisons. Blancpain, for example, was established in 1735. Since the start, Hublot has made a name for itself with bold creations, like the Big Bang, which rocked the watchmaking constellation upon release in 2005 for its combination of materials (rubber with precious metals), mixed with traditional Swiss watchmaking – an approach the brand coined the “Art of Fusion”. When you keep all of that in mind, a subversive, multidisciplinary creative like Ross is a perfect partner, and he joins a line of high-profile collaborators, including Superflat pioneer Takashi Murakami, as well as sporting greats Novak Djokovic and Kylian Mbappé.
Ross’s first collaborative venture with Hublot, in 2020, started not with a timepiece but with a metal and granite structure, to honour the brand’s 40th anniversary. “It was an opportunity to get in front of the C-suite at Hublot and discuss material innovations that were being developed by a young maison in Geneva,” says Ross. “Naturally, having a background in both industrial design and fashion based on technicality, there was a deep sense of synchronicity at play. And we had a lot of similarities being a young designer and a young Maison, both kind of etching out and shaping what the future of luxury can mean for contemporary culture. It made so much sense to find a way to broker a creative but also commercial partnership.” This led to further collaborative projects like the Big Bang Tourbillon orange edition released in 2022, followed by neon green in 2023, and a carbon/blue iteration in 2024.
But when we check in with Ross at Hublot’s New Bond Street boutique, he isn’t focused on previous wins. Meticulously placed on the table in front of him is the first-ever Hublot Big Bang Unico SR_A, which was unveiled at January’s LVMH Watch Week in Milan. It’s a move away from dancing tourbillons and into chronographs, while maintaining design foundations developed throughout the collaboration.
A swiftly noticeable change is the colour – or lack thereof. This time around, the watch is all-black across the case, dial and strap. “It felt quite natural for the most part. My palette is very muted. I’m drawn to quite muted tones. I think the movement and the price point and the amount of product that’s available – still only 200 pieces, but of course, an increase onwards of 50 tourbillons per release – needed to ensure that there is a sense of ease for the purchaser to integrate this chronograph into their collection,” says Ross, who sees his latest watch as more suited to daily wear and thus needing to take on a more discreet look. Fittingly, the decision to make a quieter timepiece also ties in with the anniversary of the Hublot Big Bang All Black that was released in 2006 – disruptive at the time for placing primary focus on a sleek aesthetic vision rather than legibility.
Function-wise, the Unico SR_A is a watch that serves a very different purpose than a tourbillon. This latest SR_A Hublot creation’s 42mm ceramic case houses the openworked Unico chronograph movement. In its openworked form, combined with layered design details, it feels distinctly Ross. The British designer draws on London’s architectural influences in his work. Take a glance at his latest watch’s rugged, stratified composition, and the parallels with Trellick Tower and the Barbican are there right on the wrist. He cites artists Richard Serra and Mark Rothko as inspirations for their use of asymmetry and colour isolation.
Unlike sculpture, watchmaking generally calls for an equilibrium of micromechanical engineering and design. Ross worked with Hublot’s Chief Product & Purchasing Officer Raphael Nussbaumer to achieve that harmony. “Typically, the conversation around the movements comes down to ensuring the material choices that we make, such as the grades of steel and titanium, do not impact the actual performance of the watch itself,” says Ross. “So there’s always this pursuit of being able to push a little bit, while ensuring that the actual intellectual property, which underpins this purchase and the watch itself, is always prioritised first.”
Ross’s signature honeycomb design motif is an example of such intellectual property. The lattice pattern was previously applied on the case of the SR_A tourbillon models to reduce weight and is now seen on the strap. The move is partly down to the location of the chronograph, where its column wheel sits above the six o’clock position, and is a conscious design feature that aims to bridge diving watches and chronographs, from a performance 79 perspective. Here, the honeycomb motif ensures breathability on the wrist, akin to a vented dive watch strap. “So, naturally, being able to reduce the sweat trap on the wrist was a logical and discerning decision as to why we decided to bring the honeycomb onto the strap. It’s simply more comfortable. It’s lighter at times. You forget it is on the wrist to a certain degree. And, again, this being a chronograph, being a performance tool, fundamentally, we treated it closer to being a sporting watch in this instance.”
Endless contemplation is not required to decipher who this watch is for. Ross, himself, has already been to India twice this year and picked up passport stamps in the USA and around Europe. He’s working on multiple projects at once – including a recently launched line of wrist straps and apparel for WHOOP’s wearable fitness trackers – while remaining disciplined and committed to exercise and movement. This is a watch for that lifestyle. “The main difference between SR_A and A-Cold-Wall* is that you are actually seeing more of my likeness and life ethos filter through SR_A in terms of this hybrid of a WHOOP on one side and a chronograph on the other. [The idea that] you can train and be in a comfortable and functional state of being is [inspiring] some of these design decisions,” he shares. “Because when you design for a generation, you’re trying to solve problems. You’re trying to contribute to how people want to live with these objects.”
With his latest Hublot timepiece, Ross has developed his collaboration beyond trophy tourbillons and into a more wearable watch grounded in everyday functionality. But the concept of designing for the wrist remains exciting. “It’s really the only place on the body where you can have a mechanical movement that is accepted,” he says. “To have an effigy or an aspect on the body that personifies the feats of human ingenuity and human engineering – that is incredibly exciting. As a designer and artist, it is a complete treasure trove to work with.”
