Editor's Picks
Hublot for The Rake Aerofusion Chronograph ‘Molon Labe’
Editor's Picks
Hublot for The Rake Aerofusion Chronograph ‘Molon Labe’
It was a time when Sparta had a lot to make up for. During the first invasion of Greece by Darius I in 490 BC, the Athenians had sent a messenger to run the 140 miles to Sparta to beseech them for help. He was denied on the grounds that they were amidst a religious ceremony. The Athenians went on to victory and were glorified by all of Greece. Leonidas was not going to let that happen. Supposedly before departing on what was clearly a suicide mission, his wife Gorgo told him, “Come back with your shield or on it,” which as far as badass things a wife can say to a husband before he leaves to face certain death, has got to rank at No.1.
Leonidas and his Spartans repelled unending waves of frontal attacks to the point the tens of thousands of bodies of his vanquished enemies were said to have been piled high into a wall. It was only on the seventh day that the enemy was able to flank him, thanks to a Greek traitor named Ephialtes whose name shall live in infamy forever.
Knowing that the end was near, Leonidas commanded all remaining Greeks save his Spartans to retreat. And then along with his men he fought to the very last man. Even though he had been killed, the Spartans repelled the enemy four times to retrieve his body. When word of the battle of Thermopylae spread, the tale of Spartan courage in the face of innumerable odds rallied all of Greece together to repel Xerxes and Persia once and for all. In 1955 a bronze statue of Leonidas was erected at Thermopylae and under it the words “Molon Labe,” are inscribed.
And so it began with the concept of ancient and contemporary universes colliding within the fiery crucible and fierce geometry of a single watch. After all, wasn’t this the calling card of Hublot? Isn’t “fusion” – the concept of modernity and tradition, the best of material innovation intrinsically, intermarried with the 200-year-old traditions of high Swiss watchmaking?
The first thing to achieve was to quickly arrive at the idea of metals each embodying the past and the future. And so the materials selected for The Rake’s very first collaboration with Hublot are first an expression of contemporary technical advancement and second – and perhaps more evocatively – an embodiment of the two most legendary warrior cultures of the ancient world. And their names bristle and resonate with a sense of purpose born out of their extensive use in combat.
Anyone with a penchant for handmade bicycles is going to be familiar with the name titanium. Even in the age of carbon fiber, titanium is still the material of choice for the most coveted and beautiful frames from the word’s most artisanal builders. It is simply speaking the metal that boasts the highest strength to weight ratio. It has a near infinite fatigue life, meaning that it can steadily absorb shock indefinitely with almost no change to its molecular structure and is totally impervious to corrosion. It is hypoallergenic which makes it the substance of choice for medical implants. And it is self-healing in that when scratched, a protective oxide layer instantly and spontaneously reforms. This extraordinary material was discovered in Great Britain at the turn of the 19th century and was named for the Titans of Greek mythology.
Introduced in 2013, the Hublot Classic Fusion Aero Chronograph has long been my favorite reference made by the brand. It takes all of the slimmer, more elegant Classic Fusion case styling and dimensions and adds a level of engaging transparency and arousing visual dynamism with a sapphire crystal and a highly skeletonized in-house chronograph movement.
The initial renderings for the watch came back and I was immediately enamored with the result. And while Hublot has now made several watches using bronze – specifically an engraved bronze watch for their collaboration with the extraordinary cigar maker Arturo Fuentes in a time and date only version and another limited edition in Big Bang format in collaboration with Meindl, Bavaria’s most famous producer of lederhosen – however this was an alloy using tin and burnished in a specific way. The combination of the two materials remained unique to The Rake.
In 1980 Carlos and his son Carlos Jr or Carlito restarted from the ground up in the Dominican Republic, this time with the lofty ambition of creating cigars that would rival the very best from Habana. It was a feat nothing short of the Californian wine makers defeating the French in the first international blind tasting. Fuente in particular soon to be fabled Opus X soon became as coveted as Cohiba or Trinidad cigars from their multi-layered palimpsest of flavors.
Over cigars Guadalupe, Lecigne and I all looked at the perfect shimmering oily wrappers of our beloved Opus X cigars and remarked that the straps should be an homage to Carlito’s near-alchemic abilities in blending to craft some of the most famous cigars in Christendom. To our delight Fuente agreed to participate in our special watch project and will be present at the launch of the watch to offer a tasting of his mythical smokes. So it was that philosophy, warrior culture, sybaritism and passion all formed a heady fusion, that just as in the perfect blended cigar, yielded what I believe is a result that is far greater than the sum of its parts.
The Hublot for The Rake Aerofusion Chronograph ‘Molon Labe’ will be made in a limited edition of 25 watches.