London tattoo artist Maxime Büchi takes the aesthetics and the extremes of his art to the world of watchmaking in a cool collaboration with Hublot
The popularity of tattoos as fashion statements has led tattoo artists and their customers on a constant search for new designs. Pocket watch motifs, for instance, are one of the hottest trends in skin art.
Swiss watch brand Hublot has reversed the idea, with a limited edition watch that incorporates dramatic designs by the London-based tattoo artist Maxime Büchi, whose works adorn the skin of high profile celebrities such as Kanye West, FKA Twigs, Adam Lambert of Queen and Keith Flint of The Prodigy.
Hublot is also known for its high-profile collaborations with pop culture icons, as well as Hollywood A-listers and creative tastemakers like Büchi. A design maverick, he founded the London-based Sang Bleu tattoo studio in 2006, an interdisciplinary art project where the fields of fashion, fine art, publishing, photography and tattoo art converge.
Within the framework of Hublot’s “Art of Fusion” concept, the artist and the watch brand worked together to create an innovative timepiece, the Big Bang Sang Bleu.
A completely redesigned version of the brand’s Big Bang Unico, the watch, with its sharply beveled lines and hexagonal bezel, presents an eye-catching geometric look, a key aesthetic in the tattoo art of Büchi. No hands appear on the dial–instead the superposition of three octagonal-shaped discs indicates time. Launched in 2016, Big Bang Sang Bleu is limited to just 200 pieces.
In our interview, the multidisciplinary wunderkind, who’ll be attending this year’s Art Basel and making a guest appearance at the Hublot-sponsored Hong Kong Tatler x The Artling art party at The Murray on March 28, talks about how timing and tattooing go hand in hand.
