Hublot La Cle Du Temps Watch Hands-On

Does the key of time hold the key to time? Depends on how you look at it. A few years ago Mathias Buttet created a weird watch movement capable of speeding up and slowing down time, and then automatically return the dial to the normal time. Poetically the movement had a lot of value, though practically it had next to none. What it did however do was offer a unique design opportunity to see how one might create a timepiece around this concept. This is the third try.

The first watch to use this complex vertical tourbillon based movement was a company called Horus that made a boat style watch out of it called the Ultramarinum. I believe Horus is now defunct. Then Mathias decided to use the movement in one of his own watches for the BNB Confrerie Horlogerie in a watch called the La Clef (with an "f") du Temps. I actually got to play with this incredible odd watch hands-on for myself. Mathias explained to me that it was designed using the look of the movie character Predator's head. Fair enough. BNB is not defunct. Mr. Buttet with his risk taking and creativity is now at Hublot running the movement making and designing arm. With Mr. Biver's guidance and the Hublot DNA, I think that Mathias finally found his groove.

Early this year I wrote about this watch that now has the name of the Hublot Confrerie La Cle du Temps - and now I offer you a hands-on experience of an almost ready for production model of the watch. Priced at over $300,000 this isn't a watch that is made to make money. It is make as a concept, a passion play of design and movement making designed to stimulate the imagination and offer Hublot a creative outlet. With pieces such as this coming from Hublot on a regular basis, they are more or less the premiere brand right now that is releasing experimental futuristic designs and movements. Chalk up to a Biver + Buttet power relationship.