THE TOURBILLON
ROTATES ON
TWO AXES AT
DIFFERENT
SPEEDS
from US$169,000 / hublot.com
Bit Doctor Who, isn’t it?
More like Doctor No, if you talk
to some of the watch-hating
millennials out there. Funny...
they’re happy to sous-vide
asparagus in absinthe for 16
hours and spend 45 minutes
every morning doing beard prep,
but ask them to spend just 10
seconds putting on a watch and
they look at you as if you’re some
kind of life-stealing Pan-Galactic
Time Dork. The youth of today.Well, who needs watches? The
time is all over our multi-sensory
experience. Hey, Alexa...
I unplugged Alexa. But you’ll be
pleased to hear, then, that this
watch is not, fundamentally, a very
good teller of time. Look at those
stubby hands. In a madcap station
dash, they are not going to help
you know whether it’s 11:03 (train
maybe) or 11:04 (train no more).
They’re firmly in the ‘around about
time for a gin’ school of hands.In that case, I’m cocking an
eyebrow at that price tag.
Keep cocking. You may have
heard about the high-end watch
mechanism that is a tourbillon,
designed to counter the effect
of gravity. The one in this watch
rotates not on a single axis, but
on two. And at different speeds:
it completes a revolution on one
axis every minute, and on the other
every 30 seconds. That’s a lot of
action for an analogue thing.I do like the curved glass edges.
Well, all the better to see the
captivating three-dimensional
whirling of hand-constructed
machinery. The scratch-resistant
glasswork offers the same ‘joy
of depth’ dopamine release that
people get when they see things
like a Samsung Galaxy S8. Except
that this is about 200 times more
expensive, depending on whether
you choose it in a titanium, gold or
diamond-encrusted finish.HUBLOT MP09
TOURBILLON BIAXIS
ICON