Assemble your own bespoke chronograph from the comfort of your laptop!
Not only do watch brands manufacture watches, now they're also trying their hand at selling them independently. If you look at these companies' financial reports, their own retail sales are showing stronger growth than wholesale.
The commitment to this strategy is further evidenced by the many retail spaces that luxury goods companies have recently acquired to set up their own stores. Moreover, brands also want to customize their own pieces.
Why waste time on litigation with customization workshops when you can directly invite clients to play with watch-building kits on your own official website?Armin Strom offers a configurator where clients to choose details right down to the color of the hands.
IWC invites clients to express themselves by building and customizing an Ingenieur Chronograph, personalization is offered by Rolex and Norqain, while Porsche Design promises up to 6 million possible combinations for custom-built timepieces.
In 2024, Hublot also launched their own online watch configurator for customization. The Unico movement was chosen as the focal point for the configurator.
Clients are invited to assemble an optimized combination of components to customize their own bespoke Big Bang chronograph at the final stage of the Unico Experience — a program which acquaints visitors to the manufacture's website with how the Unico movement is constructed in a 3D immersive environment.
The company rightly considers the Unico caliber one of their biggest achievements. Hublot introduced their in-house workhorse of a movement with a flyback chronograph in 2010. The second iteration, caliber 1280, saw the light of day in 2018, which was a simplified automatic version of the movement, protected by five patents.
Caliber 1280 still had the same 72-hour power reserve, but the architecture of the watch engine was modernized for increased accuracy. The movement also grew significantly thinner — down from 8.05 mm to 6.75 mm in height.
Unico powers the majority of models in Hublot's current line, and now that it's been immersed in the brand's digital realm, visitors engaging in the Unico Experience can even design their own bespoke pieces.