Hublot and the Arsham Droplet: A Time Triptych

Is it a table clock or a pendant? Yes, but it’s also a watch for the future in your pocket. Here comes Daniel Arsham’s Hublot Droplet.

Artists are always ahead of their time, the maxim goes. None more so than Cleveland-born, New York-based Daniel Arsham, whose solo show Venice 3024 currently embellishes the Chiesa di Santa Caterina in Italy. And yet, minutes before the exclusive global reveal of Daniel Arsham’s Droplet pocket watch for Swiss watchmaker Hublot at London’s Tate Modern last month (it sits on a plinth in the middle of a large pool we must walk across to reach), this writer’s mind modems backwards in time.

To 1998, and iMac G3 – the teardrop shaped translucent computer in five colours that heralded the return of Steve Jobs and saved Apple Macintosh from potential ruin. iMac was a game changer, a Technicolor chariot to the electronic highway of the future; Apple included a recessed handle on the back to make it more personal, hardware’s version of an It-bag. The keyboard and mouse sported matching translucent plastics and trim, showing the internal components inside. The trophy piece Apple called Bondi Blue (though it always looked green, or teal, or turquoise). And it’s that mouse, those skeletal workings, that green (though in this case it’s trademark Arsham Green rubber) that’s glowing large in the mind as I contemplate the Arsham Droplet across the water. 

Thirty minutes later I cross the threshold, reach the shrine and genuflect. At the pocket-watch industry’s iMac moment. Except, it’s not just a pocket watch that looks nothing like a pocket watch, it’s also a pendant, and can be mounted on a futuristic structure of Arsham’s design as a table clock, or bedside clock. The supreme wake-up call. We be-glove, and hold the universe of Arsham’s Droplet in our hand: a timepiece in triptych, a triptych in time. But whereas iMac was “mousing” with 50 years of computer design history, Arsham’s recalibrating four centuries of horological provenance.

And with a splashy amount of consumer insight and contemporary semantics; a pocket watch called Droplet, in the context of Hublot’s luminous iconoclasts such as Spirit of Big Bang and Square Bang. (That morning, Chanel announced plans to launch No.5 L’eau Drop the following week, leaving behind its legendary bottle shape for the first time in 100 years, with a limited-edition reinvention of the most iconic scent in history in a vessel shaped like a drop of glass.) And here we are, glowing in a moment of hyper-modernity one step ahead, with Arsham’s pocket watch in our hand, time wrapped eternal in a droplet of sapphire. 

Limited to just 99 pieces and costing US$88,000 each, the Arsham Droplet boasts a titanium case and rubber bumpers in custom Arsham Green, with two titanium chains, each featuring Hublot’s patented double “one-click” system for seamless attachment. At the heart of the watch lies Hublot’s Meca-10 double-barrel manufacture movement with a 10-day power reserve. 

To describe Arsham’s design as being outside the box, or, ahem … pocket, is the understatement of the year. For a start, it’s not entirely clear what it might be; a kidney, a fit-bit, a speaker, a pocket warmer, an ear, (watch wags have mentioned a Typex whitener bottle on Insta and blogs) a blood-pressure reader, a gaming console, a remote control device, or smart EV charger; and how far is Arsham’s Droplet from the tubes, lubes and toys of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pleasure Shop on Goop, for example? “What’s the time, dear’? “Ooh. It’s always time with Hublot’s Arsham Droplet, dearest.” Conscious chronological pleasure, anyone? 🙂

Arsham’s canny in matters of art and design, and especially time. Working in sculpture, architecture, drawing and film, his uchronic aesthetics revolve around his concept of “fictional archaeology” or what he calls ‘future relics of the present’. He creates eroded casts of modern or millennial artifacts – phones, TVs, VHS tapes, sneakers, Pikachu from Pokémon and recognisable personas from both anime, cartoons and Antiquity, which he makes out of geological material such as sand, selenite, obsidian, rose quartz or volcanic ash, only for them to appear as if they’d just been unearthed after being buried for centuries. As such, the present, future and past poetically collide in his haunted yet playful visions, as he plays off the notion of how technological obsolescence has unprecedentedly accelerated over the last 20 years, in tandem with the digital dematerialisation of our world. 

Pre-Tate Modern, Ashram talks tantalising tactility about the packaging for his Droplet: “It’s a sandblasted aluminium case that has three different levels that can carry everything in it. And it also … it almost becomes a jewellery case of its own.”  He considers for a moment, under his trademark cap, and tinted shades. Dressed in utility-like Prada uniform and clunky black worker boots, the very compact Arsham resembles the IRL version of a yet-to-be-made Playmobil figure of himself. “I think this is an object that becomes a sort of jewellery object,” he says, playing with the Droplet in his hands. “My girlfriend will probably steal this multiple times. I think it will function beautifully as a traditional pocket watch, but sitting in your pocket and wearing it is also very satisfying.”

Hublot & Daniel Arsham are a match, or collaboration, made in heaven. Both innovate, dare to be different and, on the practical level, share a penchant for similar materials – sapphire crystal, titanium and rubber. As inspiration for the Droplet, Arsham, lost himself for a while in the stunning landscapes of Iceland. He studied the behaviour of ice, crystals and water, and the effect of light on the passage of time, observing the forces and energies of natural wonder. “It’s the first time Hublot had made anything that’s not perfectly orthogonal and perfectly symmetrical, right?” says Arsham, with a devilish smile. “So it was a way for me to push against the perfection, if you will. I also just love the way that the curve of the sapphire bends light almost like a water droplet.”

Arsham’s quest for the innovative is unrelenting. He explains: “Any time I work with another entity, artist or company, I’m trying to find things they haven’t done before. If not, what’s the purpose for me to invent something? I’m never doing just a light touch, right?” He gravitates towards subject matter and objects that he personally appreciates. “As a collector of furniture and design,” he says, “I make things that I want to see exist in the world, that are pleasing to me – and I hope that they will be to other audiences. When I’m working with another company, it’s about using the really amazing capabilities they have for something that I would love to produce on my own.”

And how does he feel this collaboration pushes the boundaries of traditional watchmaking? “I think it’s surprising. It doesn’t look quite like anything you’ve ever really seen before, but in some ways it’s like a return to something that’s from the past. Probably the last time that people were carrying pocket watches was 100 years ago. But the Droplet does feel kind of futuristic to me, and it looks like it’s being pulled from a future era, it references the past.” Hence, right on brand for Arsham. “In this way, it’s very similar to a lot of the work that I make, which allows the objects to sort of float in time. You don’t quite know when they’re from. It could be the past or the future.”

Hublot CEO Ricardo Guadalupe, who the night before the big Tate Modern reveal presided over dinner at London’s Barbican Conservatory, alongside Frédéric Arnault, CEO of LVMH Watches, found the experience of working with Arsham enlightening. “Daniel’s passionate about watches, so he knows exactly what he’s talking about. He was very detailed: he created with his own 3D designs, with his own team. And normally on a project like this, we’d do it in a year-and-a-half, but this one took three years.” That was also partly due to Covid: the project was first conceived pre-pandemic with an anticipated launch of 2021, or 2022.

“I thought we’d do a wristwatch but Daniel wanted to do something different, and he suggested this idea of having a pocket watch. So I was surprised. But then, as we’re not a traditional watch brand, we must always be different. To which he said; ‘Well, let’s reinvent what a pocket watch is nowadays.’ And he also suggested the three ideas of it also being a pocket watch, a pendant and a table clock.”

So Guadalupe, Arsham and Hublot technicians set about developing a next-gen niche for pocket watches. “It was edgy, totally different from our watches, but at a certain point, we bring our own DNA – our movements, our screws, and using materials like sapphire, titanium and rubber. Our work was more concerned with how we could realise the product,” he says. Guadalupe contrasts that to collaborating with Japanese artist Takashi Murakami. “He doesn’t really know the watch industry so well; he gave me his smiling-flower emblem and some sketches, but we did the design of the watch, we did all the work ourselves.”

Arsham’s original plan for Hublot was a large clock, either for the wall or desk. But he wanted it made from sapphire. Hublot’s technicians told him the scale of his aspiration couldn’t be materialised using sapphire. And so, in inimitable style, Daniel took his original idea and “bent it like Arsham”. As he elaborates. “Once we’d removed it from the wrist, it was free to do anything. It had the potential to go in all these different areas,” he says. “So we developed a new idea where there’s a clip-on system on both sides: it allows the pocket watch to be disconnected either from a necklace, or it can also be clipped into this other device that turns it effectively into a clock that can sit on your desk or your nightstand.”

Arsham explains how the Droplet design idea or shape crystallised over time, and was as much to do with his hand as his eye or mind. “As you’ll see when you get to hold it, the shape of this object is really determined by holding it in your hand.” He studied numerous vintage pocket watches and noted that most had covers, so at first he designed a titanium shell that might cover the timepiece, only to find it too fussy and technical. “So the shape then really came about just through looking at the shape of the hand, and how the object would sit in the hand, and to allow enough space to contain the clip-in device as well.”

Meantime, what’s the future for Arsham and Hublot? “Consumers are always waiting for the next surprise. The collaboration with Daniel positions our brand and elevates us to the level of the artist. It brings a lot of notoriety. It’s about brand awareness; elevation of the brand; the fact that we can reach a new audience of fans and collectors of Daniel Arsham. But with Daniel and this piece it’s a talking point. We’re working on a wristwatch also for the future, because it’s going to be a long-term partnership.”

Which is something Hublot is already nurturing with footballer Kylian Mbappé, the world’s second most famous footballer after you-know-who. We met on the eve of the UEFA Euro 2024 and despite Mbappé’s subsequent battering and bruising in France’s opening game against Austria – whatever happens in the tournament thereafter – he’ll start next season with Real Madrid, which is sweet music to Guadalupe’s ears. “I’d say he’s the number-one active player in the sport for the next 10 years,” he says.  Hublot is the only luxury watchmaker that sponsors football, both men’s and women’s. “And in terms of reach, Real is a better club than Paris St Germain. We have more impact in Latin America – and in China – as a result, much more so than from Paris St Germain.”

So can we expect the Hublot Mbappé to drop at the commencement of the season in August/September? “We’re working on the Mbappé watch now,” Guadalupe reveals exclusively. “He’s very young and very smart. And he has clear ideas about what he wants in a watch – one that personifies himself, and one that speaks to the young generation. He wants to bring his values of giving back, because he’s a successful athlete and wants to be a successful example as a person to others. He’s not just a footballer. He has a foundation, he does a lot for children already, and for young people.”

So both for Arsham and for Mbappé: Watch. This. Space. 

This article was first published in Prestige Hong Kong