The limited-edition watch Hublot and Novak Djokovic will unveil Wednesday in Paris is lighter than a ball however carries the load of tennis historical past.
Packed within the 49 grams of the Large Bang Unico Novak Djokovic are tennis rackets and Lacoste polo shirts worn by the Serbian tennis participant throughout key matches of the 2023 season, which noticed him break information by reaching a complete of 24 Grand Slam males’s singles titles. He has since added Olympic gold on the 2024 Paris Video games.
The participant’s gear — 25 rackets and greater than 30 shirts — was floor up and become a camo-like speckled composite in tones of blue that was used for the bezel and case of the 42-mm timepiece.
“We wished to do one thing completely different, as soon as extra authentic and by no means accomplished earlier than, and this sort of materials upcycling hasn’t,” mentioned the Swiss watchmaker’s chief govt officer Julien Tornare. “And if Hublot and its ‘artwork of fusion’ doesn’t do it, who would?”
Whereas the brand new supplies developed for this collaboration usually are not fairly prepared for large-scale manufacturing, the watch govt mentioned they’d yielded loads of learnings for sustainability. “We actually explored issues that we didn’t grasp and that may result in technical options to supplies recycling that we will use in future,” he added.
And if that wasn’t sufficient, ensuring its weight was as minimal as attainable was an added problem. As a collector himself and model ambassador for Hublot since 2021, Djokovic mentioned that the standard he most admired in a watch is lightness.
The Large Bang Unico Novak Djokovic.
Courtesy of Hublot
“To me, that’s the true magnificence of getting a grasp timepiece in your wrist — when the time softly nudges you and doesn’t burden you by its weight,” he informed WWD completely. “Once we designed [this watch], we took fairly a while to make it replicate that.”
Cue strikes that included making the Unico chronograph motion in aluminum, lowering the load by virtually a 3rd, and incorporating the tempered glass utilized in high-end electronics and twice as gentle because the sapphire usually utilized in watchmaking.
“It’s now lighter than a tennis ball,” enthused Djokovic. “Whoever is into efficiency sports activities can very a lot admire this lightness.”
That’s the sort of nitty-gritty that the ace participant mentioned he’d significantly loved in wonderful Swiss watchmaking that made the event strategy of the Large Bang Unico bearing his title “fairly a particular expertise to have.”
“To not be too philosophical, however I can examine my relationship with time with the values of watchmakers. It’s all about craftsmanship,” the tennis participant mentioned. “As soon as I mastered my craft and established myself on and off the court docket as a high competitor, I spotted that I additionally mastered the time.”
And in keeping with Djokovic, there may be one ultimate ingredient in every of the 100 watches of this restricted version: the “successful vitality” infused by gear worn throughout his “most particular matches” of 2023.
“To succeed in the place I’m at the moment, it has required intensive work each bodily and most significantly, mentally,” he mentioned. “This new watch is an extension of this mindset and represents key moments from my 2023 season, a landmark 12 months in my profession. It’s a image of each sport, each second.”
Priced at $52,700, the Large Bang Unico Novak Djokovic will include 4 straps, together with one modeled after a tennis wristband. Additionally included are a sports activities wristband and signed polo shirt from Lacoste, because the tennis participant has been an envoy of the French label since 2017.